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There is no paradise awaiting young “thrill seekers” lured to fight with Islamic State in the Middle East, warns a leading criminoligist.

Imran Awan, of Birmingham City University, has called on Muslim men to ignore the lure of jihad.

A high proportion of the 700 British citizens who have left for the war-ravaged region are from the West Midlands, Mr Awan said.

While some receive favourable treatment, many are traumatised by the group’s brutality and gruesome crimes committed such as beheadings.

The senior lecturer in criminology told the Birmingham Mail: “Young people are going to Syria because they’re seeking a sense of identity and belonging. I’d call them thrill seekers.

“They’re going for an external reward and thinking that they’ll get some kind of paradise when they get there.

(Image: TIM STEWART NEWS LIMITED)

"Many of them may be leading mundane and ordinary lives and they’re looking for an adrenaline rush.

"ISIS portrays a very cool image of extremism and it’s tapping in to young impressionable people.”

Mr Awan is conducting research into how Islamic State recruits young Muslims in the West Midlands.

He said: “Some of them do get quite favourable treatment, they get allowances, medical care and stuff like that.

"The others see the reality of dead bodies and they see a hyper-global insurgency and a war, and for some of them it’s very difficult to come back to the UK because of legislation and citizenship and passports being removed.

“Some of them have sent out podcasts from there, believe it or not, and said they want to come back but are too afraid to.”

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The warning follows the conviction of 20-year-old Zakariya Ashiq, who was this week found guilty of two counts of preparing acts of terrorism in his attempt to join Islamic State.

Ashiq, from Coventry, was jailed for six years after being arrested at Heathrow Airport in November having failed to cross into Syria from Jordan.

Another high-profile case is that of Junaid Hussain, a Birmingham hacker who has joined Islamic State, and is the main suspect in a cyber attack on the US military’s central command.

Hussain, 21, who escaped to Syria two years ago while on police bail, is alleged to be the terror organisation’s most accomplished computer expert.

The jihadi, from Kings Heath, has tweeted using the alias Abu Hussain al-Britani.

(Image: BPM)

Earlier this year, police revealed that at least 22 young women and girls as young as 15 have travelled to join Islamic State in Syria in the last 12 months.

Overall 700 people are thought to have left for jihadi groups in the region and while no firm figures exist dozens are thought to be from the West Midlands based on court cases and known individuals in the region.

Mr Awan believes the figures are unlikely to drop off despite the barbaric actions of Islamic State, which are countered by its own online propaganda.

He said: “It’s fine to some extent to arrest and detain people when they come back but that doesn’t deal with the root causes of the problem.

“We need to ask why they are going out there in the first place and how we can prevent the problem.

(Image: Getty)

“Communities need to work much more closely with the police and if they are spotting signs, such as parents spotting signs in their children, they need to report it.

“The other way is to look at the root causes.

"ISIS are flooding the internet with their propaganda and our counter-narrative is very weak, their messages are high up in the search listings.

“There also seem to be a lot of young people who feel marginalised for whatever reason.

"Unless we address this now in the next five, 10 years it will be even worse.

"If ISIS are defeated it won’t solve the problem, there will be splinter groups jumping on the bandwagon.”