EXCLUSIVE: 'Why I left safe shores for Syria'
Australian Muslims joining the conflict in Iraq and Syria have prompted fears about the risk they pose to our own national security.
In an exclusive interview, one young Australian explains for the first time why he left safe shores for the deadly region.
He speaks with the same casual accent familiar in backyards and barbecues across Australia.
And he describes himself as a "True Blue, born and bred Aussie".
But the new name he has chosen, Abu Ousama, gives a hint of the path his life has taken.
Raised and educated in Australia, he now lives in the Syrian city of Idlib.
For three years, the world has watched as millions of refugees stream out of a country torn apart by civil war.
Abu Ousama was just one of the mostly unseen Australians who chose this moment to go in.
In an exclusive interview filmed by British photojournalist Tam Hussein, he explains his support for beheadings of terror group Islamic State.
"You have these beheadings - some people might call them barbaric," he said.
"But what is the difference between a missile that comes into a house which kills 15 kids compared to a man dying getting cut by his throat?"
He is now a member of an Islamist battalion of rebel fighters called Jund al Aqsa that is independent of IS.
But he has strong sympathy for their ambitions for an Islamic State and its barbaric methods.
It's a complicated conflict.
He first went over to help distribute aid.
Now he's a valued member of a rebel group of more than 1000 men fighting the Assad regime, widely denounced as a cruel dictatorship.
Abu Hussein is a combat medic - but one who believes in executing innocent men in public beheadings.
Meanwhile, he spends most days working at the hospital, trains the fighters in fitness and helps save the lives of comrades on the front line who are wounded by bullets and shrapnel.
Often he helps injured children.
He told Tam Hussein he first travelled to the region to provide aid.
But handing out food to those already in protected border camps didn't "satisfy" him.
Now he defends the push for an Islamic State and compares their murders to those killed while establishing Australia and the US.
"A lot of me coming here was for me to help the people," he said.
"Me having a beautiful lifestyle and them getting blown up... I said to myself am I better than them?"
But he believes the only way the world will run properly is when everyone embraces Islam and IS killings can be justified in achieving that aim.
"You look at history," he says.
"When Australia first started, how much people did it have to kill to be able to make its state?
It went through not just hundreds, it went through hundreds of thousands of innocent Aborigines for it to be able to stand up and say we're a state - we want this land, we've taken this land we're a state. No one is really standing next to the Syrians in this state.
"ISIS has taken this role of protecting the innocent Muslims of this country, of this land, so they need to do what they have to do to make their state.
"If they are blackmailing America or anybody saying don't shoot a missile that is going to kill 50 or 60 people for one bloke, how can we say that is even equivalent to it being a wrong.
"Let America count how many people it had to kill before it could say we're the United States of America.
"Once ISIS has reached that limit, then start counting them for every person they have killed to build their state."
It is an extreme world view, expressed with startling clarity.
His path provides a crucial insight for anyone interested in combating extremism in Australia.
The Australian Federal Police has warned of severe penalties for those supporting armed forces in the region - even though opposition forces in Syria have previously been labelled legitimate.
Australian National University's Dr Clarke Jones spent 15 years working with the Federal government in areas of national security.
He says many who go over to fight will struggle to reintegrate.
"I don't think we will have a lot of success reintroducing or rehabilitating those who are hardened and support IS," he said.
"Some of those will never return, they will die for their cause.
"There are those that still have a chance and we should treat them fairly when they return, those who have broken the law need to be dealt with by the judicial system but should be treated accordingly.
"But we can't throw everyone into the same basket."
Tam Hussein spent long periods living with brigades in Syria where he recorded the interview with Abu Ousama.
"It was very, very bizarre to see this guy. Initially I thought he was a Syrian, from the Arabian peninsula, but then he's got this Oz accent," he said.
"He seemed in his mid-20s. Very mature.
"Out of all the fighters, I found him the most human, others were in many ways running on a script - he just let loose.
Hussein says it is likely Abu Ousama is a product of his environment in Syria.
"When I was there, I saw there was a lot of support for Islamic State just generally among the populace.
"Why is that? Because if you go to the areas they control, a kilo of tomatoes costs 15 liras - as opposed to hundreds of liras where they don't control."
Abu Ousama is just one of dozens of Australians who have found a way into the Syrian conflict - one that has more sides than most people not native to the region can hope to understand. Like the Spanish Civil War, it is likely we will see Australians fighting on both sides of the front line.
Abu Ousama has a warning for a Australia - a country he says he still loves.
"I am sad to see Australia taking that step," he said of our involvement. Coming into a place that it doesn't need to be. Because it will cause a reaction.
"It will cause people to hate it."
