- Hamayun Tariq, 37, believed to have joined ISIS in Syria seven weeks ago
- Served three years in jail for fraud before joining Pakistani Taliban in 2012
- Recently left Taliban for ISIS who gave him a salary and housing benefit
- Regularly updates social media pages with chilling bomb-making guides
- Dudley-born divorcee says British passport was revoked while in Pakistan
- Father of two first embraced radical Islam in 2000 while in his early 20s
Jihadi: Fraudster turned terrorist Hamayun Tariq claims his British passport has been revoked
A former car mechanic who fled Britain and joined the Taliban after serving a prison sentence for fraud has joined the Islamic State and is now fighting in Syria, it has been claimed.
Hamayun Tariq, a divorced 37-year-old who was born and raised in Dudley in the West Midlands, is understood to have joined ISIS seven weeks ago, and has been claiming a salary and housing benefits from the terror group ever since.
The father of two claims to be an explosives expert and, although his social media accounts are currently suspended, is notorious for posting chilling bomb-making guides for Western jihadis.
Tariq is understood to use the nom de guerre Abu Muslim Al-Britani and has previously posted under the Twitter handle @MuslimVictory, although that account was deleted last week after he posted sickening calls for terror attacks in the UK.
He also regularly posted photographs of handwritten instructions explaining how to assemble crude explosive devices and listing the chemicals needed to create deadly poisons.
Tariq's Twitter rants appear to have been in retaliation for him allegedly having his British passport revoked last year.
One of his most widely shared messages was a sarcastic note of 'thanks' to Home Secretary Theresa May for 'revoking my British citizenship'
Alongside the message was page after page of bomb-making material from a 2006 terrorist manual named the Mujahideen Explosives Handbook.
His distribution of the material led to his @MuslimVictory Twitter account being suspended a short time later and all of his messages deleted.
Explosives expert: Hamayun Tariq's distribution of the bomb-making material led to his @MuslimVictory Twitter account being suspended last week and all of his messages deleted
Stronghold: Tariq is likely to be living and working in the Syrian city of Raqqa (pictured) - ISIS' de facto capital
Tariq claims to have encountered up to 40 other British nationals in seven weeks since he joined ISIS is Syria, according to the Guardian, who say they spoke to him via Twitter's private messaging function before his account was eventually disabled.
Describing himself as 'really happy' to have joined the terror group, he reportedly added that he had also met a 'fixer' who was smuggling 1,000 new recruits into ISIS-held areas of Syria every week.
He reportedly told the newspaper that he first embraced radical Islam in 2000.
Tariq was arrested for fraud in Wolverhampton in 2005 but fled to Pakistan to avoid the case going to trial. He was deported back to Britain two years later and served three and a half years in prison.
He claims to have left Britain immediately after his release in 2012 and moved to the Waziristan region of north west Pakistan, where he joined the local Taliban branch.
In September or early October Tariq is understood to have been contacted by ISIS fixers who paid for his transport to join the terror group in Syria.
He was trained as a sniper before moving on to specialise in explosives - a subject he has been interested in since studying for a GCSE in Science in the mid-1990s.
Militants: In September or early October Tariq is understood to have been contacted by ISIS fixers who paid for his transport from Pakistan to join the terror group (pictured) in northern Syria
The Home Office says there are at least 500 Britons fighting for ISIS but that figure may be much higher
Tariq described his new life under ISIS as far more comfortable than that in Pakistan.
'Life was tough in Waziristan but here I can't believe I get a salary, I get rent.
They even paid for my transport. I'm really happy here and all the guys I've met from the UK are also happy and settled,' he was quoted as saying.
The Home Office would not speak about Tariq's claim that his passport had been cancelled, saying they could not comment on individual cases.
However they did add that in a broader sense any individual who has conducted himself 'in a manner seriously prejudicial to the vital interests of the UK' can have their citizenship revoked.
The Home Office has said there are at least 500 Britons fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, although a number of experts believe the real figure is likely to greatly exceed that.
Last week Kurdish experts told The Independent that the terror group now has an army of up to 200,000 men alongside a population of several million non-combatants
The figures are totally unprecedented for fighters belonging to a terrorist organisation.
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