'They come to be killed 200 per cent because they are brainwashed,' he says

A hairdresser from South London has become the first Briton known to have travelled to Iraq to fight alongside Kurdish forces against the Islamic State.

Mama Kurda of Croydon, South London, runs a hair salon in Clapham. But the 26-year-old is now fighting with the Kurds against the militant group whose savagery has shocked the world.

And although he's proud to be British, he says he's ready to kill any of the estimated 500 Britons who have travelled to the region to join the Islamic State insurgency.

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Perfect hair, of course: Mama Kurda has left his job as a hairdresser in Clapham, south west London, to travel to Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and fight alongside the Peshmerga against the Islamic State insurgency

The UK has been shamed by the recent video circulated by Islamic State that all but shows a militant with a London accent beheading captive American photojournalist James Foley.

'I have to show the world there is a British citizen fighting against them,' Mr Kurda told the Daily Mirror.

Mr Kurda was born in the Kurdish region, which extends from Turkey, through Syria and Iraq, and into Iran, but moved to Britain at the age of 15.

Since returning to the region three weeks ago to fight alongside the Peshmerga - the self-defence force of Iraq's Kurds - he has taken part in fierce firefights and was among the units that retook the vital Mosul Dam.

He told the Mirror's Martin Bagot he believes Islamic State's militants are mostly young, easily brainwashed and go into battle high on drugs.

At work at the salon: Mr Kurda was born in the Kurdish region, which extends from Turkey to Iran, but moved to Britain at the age of 15

'What I saw from their eyes is they come to be killed 200 per cent because they are brainwashed they will go straight to heaven,' said Mr Kurda.

Today Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Iraqi government forces were attempting to recapture two towns in northern Iraq seized by Islamic State in a lighting advance over the past month.

The Kurdish forces, backed by U.S. airpower, took one district near the eastern entrance to Jalawla, 70 miles northeast on Baghdad, the site of weeks of clashes, the sources said.

Iraqi troops supported by Iraqi fighter planes were advancing towards the nearby town of Saadiya, the security sources said. Both towns are near the Iranian border and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

It is not known if Mr Kurda was among the units involved in the fighting. But his comments, published today, suggest he would jump at the chance and that he's in for the long haul.

'When I saw my Kurdish brothers and sisters being killed by these terrorists I was angry in my heart. I couldn't stop myself and stay home,' he said.

'People say, 'If you have a British passport why are you doing this? You could get out.' But I am fighting to save people's lives.'

The actions of the Peshmerga forces have created a quandary for the West. In Turkey, the Kurdistan People's Party (PKK) fought a 20-year insurgency that saw them labelled a terror group by the international community.

Now those same fighters are also crossing the borders into Iraq and Syria where they are now fighting on the same side as the U.S. and its allies, including Turkey.

The PKK says it played a decisive role in blunting the militants' sweep through Iraq, which triggered U.S. air strikes to halt their advance, and is now lobbying for an end to its terrorist label.

'This war will continue until we finish off the Islamic State,' said Rojhat, a PKK fighter speaking from a hospital bed in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in Iraq.

Rojhat, 33, was wounded for a third time in the battle to retake the northern Iraqi town of Makhmur from the Islamic State after the militants initially routed the Kurdish autonomous region's Peshmerga.

The first two times he was fighting Turkish forces, part of a conflict which killed 40,000 people between its beginnings in 1984 with demands for Kurdish independence from Turkey and a ceasefire in March 2013.

His role highlights the challenge the PKK represents for Ankara, which still views it as terrorist but feels seriously threatened by the Islamic State, which has seized dozens of its citizens.

Victory: Peshmerga fighters walk across Mosul Dam in northern Iraq yesterday after they managed to retake the strategically important position from Islamic State militants with the help of the U.S. Air Force

Thanks to Rojhat and his comrades-in-arms, residents of Makhmur who fled in terror at an onslaught that threatened Erbil, 40 miles away, are now returning to assess the damage.

They have already sprayed over graffiti that reads: 'the Islamic State is here to stay'.

'This is not just about Makhmur: this is about Kurdistan,' said PKK commander Sadiq Goyi, seated beneath a banner of the group's jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan, referring to Kurdish-inhabited land in Syria and Iran as well as Turkey and Iraq.

'Islamic State is a danger to everyone, so we must fight them everywhere'.

Enemy's enemy: A Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) fighter in Makhmour, recently retaken from Islamic State

An armed sister group of the PKK - People's Defense Units (YPG) - has carved out an autonomous zone in Syria's northeast, successfully fending off attacks by IS militants who have proclaimed a caliphate straddling the frontier with Iraq.

When the militants overran peshmerga positions in northwestern Iraq, YPG fighters crossed over from Syria and evacuated thousands of minority Yazidis left stranded on a mountain with scant food and water.

'The PKK is our hero,' said 26-year-old Hussein, one of hundreds of Yazidis being trained by YPG fighters at several camps inside Syria to fight the Islamic State.

PKK commanders say guerrillas have been dispatched to the front line in the cities of Kirkuk and Jalawla as well. They declined to give numbers and fierce fighting makes their statements hard to verify.

The wounded guerrilla Rojhat said the PKK was more organised and disciplined than the Peshmerga, and its tactics better suited to fighting Islamic State, even without the kind of military hardware Iraqi Kurds are seeking.