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TWO volunteer soldiers fighting IS in Syria have said they are prepared to die for their mission.

The men face arrest when – and if – they return to the UK because of a ban on British citizens travelling to the war zone.

One gave up a job as a council gardener while the other was homeless before joining the 40-strong Bob Crow Brigade (BCB), who have combined battling Islamic fundamentalists with spreading the word of socialism.

The unit are named after the late Rail Maritime Transport union chief and have posted bizarre images of themselves in the war-torn country with banners supporting Jeremy Corbyn and UK rail strikes.

One of the two Scots was filmed in the northern city of Manbij criticising Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his alleged support for the terror group in a video statement released on Facebook last month.

One, using the name Philip, quit his job as a council gardener to join the fight against IS – and revealed his family do not have a clue he’s involved in the conflict.

The 28-year-old said: “My family think I’m in California picking grapes or some nonsense. I’m not sure they were paying attention.

“I was tempted to push it and say I was taking part in the Patagonian pineapple harvest.

“I send them occasional pictures on Facebook of me in the desert and they say it looks hot.

“My last job was a council gardener but working via an agency – explain that. Agencies should be illegal.

“For me, it was a pretty straightforward anti-fascist struggle calling for our help. I’m an active anti-fascist back home.

“If you look at the way IS destroy all minorities – religious, ethnic, gay people – to establish their total control, it’s clear they’re fascists.”

Neither of the pair had any military training before going to Syria six months ago.

Both flew out to Turkey after contacting the International Freedom Battalion on Facebook.

They were smuggled over the border to Syria and received a month’s combat training at a camp run by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

They are among an estimated 100 Western volunteers thought to be fighting IS.

In August, members of the BCB released an image of themselves standing in front of a wall with a message to Labour Party leadership contender Owen Smith, who had proposed that the UK Government should negotiate with IS.

It read: “Want to talk to Isis? Tell that to the martyrs of Manbij.”

The message was followed by a quote attributed to Crow, who is claimed to have said: “If you fight, you won’t always win. If you don’t fight, you will always lose.”

The Foreign Office believe approximately 850 people from the UK, including Glaswegian Aqsa Mahmood, have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the terror group, although about half have since returned.

The two Scots interviewed by the Sunday Mail are helping Kurdish forces in Manbij, where 22-year-old Brit Dean Carl Evans, from Reading, was killed in July.

The other fighter, using the name Terry, said he had been unemployed and homeless for two years before going to Syria.

The 27-year-old said: “It’s a revolution. It’s not about professional soldiers fighting each other. It’s about normal people standing up.

“Our team leaders are women who were just villagers before.

“Anyone can – and should – take part in a fight like this. There’s really no excuse for able-bodied people without dependants.

“There just isn’t work where I live any more. Here, we don’t get wages but we have amazing abandoned houses, free cigarettes, food and comradeship that you don’t get at home.

“I’m sold on these people and their ideology – this is the happiest I’ve ever been.

“If the Government want to ‘de-radicalise’ us if we come home or worry about more people coming out here, they should start rebuilding industry and providing decent, stable jobs for working-class people.”

He added: “Both my parents are proud I’m here. My dad was a communist and raised me with the utmost respect for the international brigades that fought in Spain so he couldn’t really say much when the IFB literally called for new international brigades.

“I’d been following the Rojava Revolution for a while and was really inspired by the fact women were leading the fight.”

Asked if he’d personally killed any IS fighter, Terry said: “I like this question. Will you write to us in prison?

“People are generally excited by the fact we’re here on their side.

Any time we’re flying down the motorway hanging off the back of a Toyota Hilux, everyone’s yelling what little English they know because we’re white.

“All you hear is, ‘Hello. How are you? I love you,’ as we go past.”

Despite living in the world’s bloodiest war zone, the pair insist there is no shortage of laughs.

Philip said: “We have a reputation for being nice to animals in the IFB so we get a lot of them delivered to us.

“At one point, we had chickens, five puppies and three white rabbits. Our base looked like the Teletubbies after a nuclear strike.

“One day, a Kurdish comrade came back with a turtle. He was just playing with it in a bowl. We were like, ‘Heval, where did you get that?’ He just looked at us straight and said, ‘I like turtles.’”