Now here's something you don't get to hear often. The Islamic State, a terrorist organization known to attract young foreign jihadist fighters through a sophisticated online recruitment campaign, rejected two Australian men from joining the ISIS ranks for being too fat, Breitbart reported.
In hindsight, it was probably a blessing in disguise.
Like many other similar cases, the two brothers, whose names have not been released, lied to their parents by claiming that they were going for a holiday to Thailand. But instead, the pair headed to Syria, which has largely been taken over by ISIS.
Traveling from Western Sydney, the two brothers were joined by two more friends, who were allegedly less rotund than the former duo, according to the Australian Muslim leader Dr. Jamal Rifi.
Describing the brothers as "obese" and "unfit to run in a field," Rifi said, "They're definitely not fit to fight, they don't have any knowledge of how to fight."
"They didn't show any signs of radicalization. They were good boys, which is why their mother is so shocked," Rifi added to the Metro.
Following their rejection, the pair allegedly returned back and appeared in a video where they can be seen attempting to jump through hoops in order to improve their fitness.
Although this incident can be deemed to be an amusing one, these brothers do form part of an increasing trend of Westerners traveling to Syria and Iraq in an attempt to battle alongside foreign jihadist groups.
ISIS, which has captured large swaths of land in Syria and Iraq, includes thousands of foreign militants and has become a magnet for jihadi volunteers from Europe and North America, according to Western intelligence agencies.
Meanwhile, a senior Kurdish leader revealed that at least 200,000 Islamic State militants are reportedly fighting in Iraq and Syria against the international coalition, far larger than what has previously been estimated by the CIA.
While intelligence officials had reported the terrorist organization as having up to 31,500 fighters, it is now being speculated that ISIS has recruited an army hundreds of thousands strong, further proven by their ability to simultaneously cover and attack multiple widely separated fronts in Iraq and Syria, The Independent reported.
"I am talking about hundreds of thousands of fighters because they are able to mobilize Arab young men in the territory they have taken," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of the Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, told The Independent in an exclusive interview on Sunday.
