This is the chilling moment the UK\u2019s first female suicide bomb plotter tells police during an interview she was planning a Sri Lanka-style terror attack on St Paul\u2019s Cathedral as she is jailed for 14 years.<\/p>\n
Wearing a black hijab, Muslim convert Safiyya Shaikh, 36, smiled and raised her index finger in a salute associated with ISIS as she was taken to the cells.<\/p>\n
Shaikh, born Michelle Ramsden in Hounslow, west London, told undercover police officers she wanted to \u2018do a piece of history and kill as many kuffar as possible\u2019 in a day of carnage across the capital.<\/p>\n
The single mother ran a chat room dedicated to martyrs and told followers of her determination to become Britain\u2019s first female suicide bomber.<\/p>\n
She was addicted to heroin but said she always wanted to \u2018do something big\u2019 and that killing one infidel was \u2018not enough for me.\u2019<\/p>\n
After setting off the two bombs, she wanted to blow herself up on the London Underground, it can be disclosed.<\/p>\n
Shaikh told an undercover officer: \u2018So this is really what I want but I would like to kill a lot brother. Until I\u2019m killed. This is what I really want. Bi\u2019idnillah [god permitting].<\/p>\n
\u2018I am ready for jannah [paradise] but I want to do big things, insha\u2019Allah [god willing].\u2019<\/p>\n
Shaikh shared images of Charles and Diana\u2019s wedding at the St Paul\u2019s and wrote: \u2018If I had choice I blow the church to ground. With kuffar in it,\u2019 adding a laughing emoji.<\/p>\n
\u2018I want start planning. I am serious about this,\u2019 she added. \u2018It not only words akhi [brother] I want action and revenge deep from my heart.\u2019<\/p>\n
Shaikh was inspired by the Sri Lanka bombings on Easter Day last year which killed 259 people and wanted to strike when the cathedral was full.<\/p>\n
Alison Morgan QC, prosecuting, described her as a \u2018violent extremist\u2019 who had pledged her support for ISIS in a written oath on pink note paper.<\/p>\n
Shaikh \u2018gave the impression she was ready, in fact desperate, to launch an attack,\u2019 Ms Morgan said.<\/p>\n
Jailing her for life, with a minimum of 14 years, the judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, said she sought to encourage lone wolf attacks and had become \u2018determined to carry out terrorists acts of your own in this country.\u2019<\/p>\n
The judge jailed her for another eight years, concurrently, for running the chatroom.<\/p>\n
Jenny Hopkins, head of the Counter-Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: \u2018Safiyya Shaikh chose to live her life as a violent extremist with a murderous hatred of those who did not share her twisted version of Islam.<\/p>\n
\u2018She hoped to inspire others by sharing terrorist images on social media but wanted to go much further.<\/p>\n
\u2018The damning evidence presented by the CPS of her planned suicide mission to St Paul\u2019s Cathedral left her with no room to talk her way out the charges.\u2019<\/p>\n
The court heard how she became radicalised in 2007 and followed extremist preachers on Facebook.<\/p>\n
In one message, she told an undercover officer: \u2018Even though it was first hard to see the beheading videos, but I kept watching more and more and now I love and would take a kuffar [infidel\u2019s] head off easy lol [laughs out loud].<\/p>\n
She had had her daughter removed to the care of social services and told a female undercover officer that she was launching a suicide attack so that \u2018Allah to forgive me for everything.\u2019<\/p>\n
The undercover officer, arranged for Shaikh to meet his \u2018wife\u2019, known as Azra, in Fassnidge Park in Uxbridge to be fitted for a suicide vest and hand over a Pink Nike holdall and what she referred to as a \u2018girlie backpack\u2019, to be filled with explosives.<\/p>\n
After she was arrested, Shaikh claimed she had got cold feet and was trying to back out of the plan, but in a recorded telephone conversation from prison, she told a friend: \u2018I was going to go through with it, I wasn\u2019t getting cold feet, I wasn\u2019t having doubts.<\/p>\n
\u2018The reason why I didn\u2019t turn up on the day was that I was doing drugs. I would have arranged another appointment with them, I would have met them. That day I just didn\u2019t wake up in time and that\u2019s the truth.\u2019<\/p>\n
When she was first arrested Shaikh could not be interviewed by police because she was on a heroin comedown, a court hearing was told.<\/p>\n
After converting to Islam, at the age of 24, she started to follow preachers connected to Anjem Choudary on Youtube and began watching gory beheading videos online.<\/p>\n
On August 18 last year, Shaikh was stopped at Luton Airport on her way to the Netherlands under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.<\/p>\n
Her ticket had been purchased by Yousra Lemouesset, the wife of a so-called ISIS \u2018martyr\u2019 who had returned to the Netherlands from Syria after her husband was killed.<\/p>\n
Shaikh\u2019s telephone was examined and her passport was seized from her. She was released but not allowed to travel.<\/p>\n
Two days later, an undercover \u2018role play\u2019 officer, known as \u2018H\u2019, began chatting to her on Threema, an encrypted anonymous messaging app.<\/p>\n
Shaikh told him: \u2018I try to inspire others to fight Insha\u2019Allah [god willing] but lately I fell it\u2019s not enough.<\/p>\n
\u2018I want to take revenge for Allah our Prophet. I hate the kuffar [infidels] for what they do and I fell I cannot live comfortably in this dunya [earthly life] while our ummah [Muslim nation] suffer.\u2019<\/p>\n
Shaikh believed the man online could get hold of explosives for her and told him she was going to conduct a reconnaissance mission around St Paul\u2019s Cathedral.<\/p>\n
She said she had no \u2018kafir clothes\u2019 of her own and would have to \u2018take something from my daughter.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Also, just in case I was ever stop by police, what story I give them? I was thinking to say am visiting that church cos my gran loved it,\u2019 she added.<\/p>\n
On September 7 last year, Shaikh booked into the \u00a3200 a night, Great St Helen Hotel, near the \u2018Gerkhin\u2019 office block in the City of London, and the next day toured the cathedral, noting the number of American and Chinese tourists.<\/p>\n
She picked up an order of service for Matins, noted down the exit routes and sent images to the officer suggesting she would place a bomb under the dome to bring the whole building down.<\/p>\n
The next day, she sent an image of herself wearing a red niqab and black headband with Arabic writing on it, and giving the single fingered salute of ISIS.<\/p>\n
She wrote: \u2018I got this the other day. I love it. Always wanted to be a warrior, Soldier of Allah. I just don\u2019t want waste any second. If I am gonna die, I want do most I can til end.\u2019<\/p>\n
Interviewed by police, Shaikh confessed that she planned to carry out a suicide bomb attack like the terrorist attack in Sri Lanka in order to gain access to heaven.<\/p>\n
Asked what she was planning, she said: \u2018Obviously if I had the rucksack, you know like what happened in Sri Lanka, like that. I was going to do the same thing \u2013 blow everything up.\u2019<\/p>\n
She said she intended to die in the attack and added: \u2018I thought that was my way into heaven. I thought that was my way for forgiveness.\u2019<\/p>\n
Shaikh pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications but claimed she would not have gone through with the plan.<\/p>\n
Commander Richard Smith, head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard said: \u2018Safiyya Shaikh was clearly dangerous. She was spreading vile directives for mass murder across the world and also planning her own horrific attack on UK soil.<\/p>\n
\u2018I am pleased to say that we were able to identify her plans, assess her intent and then lay before her the evidence of her criminality resulting in the guilty pleas.\u2019<\/p>\n
He concluded: \u2018Shaikh was dedicated to her<\/p>\n
extremist beliefs. In addition to wanting to carry out her own sickening attack on UK soil, she hoped to inspire others to implement attack plans even after she had died. Thanks to the hard work of officers from both the Met Police and MI5, she is instead in jail.<\/p>\n
\u2018Every day, including during the pandemic, the national counter terrorism police network is continuing to fight terrorism. We\u2019re working with businesses and places of worship to try and keep everyone safe. I urge the public to help us by reporting anything at all suspicious to police.\u2019<\/p>\n
At the same time as she was planning the attack, Shaikh was running a \u2018channel\u2019 on the encrypted Telegram application called GreenB1rds.<\/p>\n
The channel disseminated extremist propaganda in support of ISIS and instructional material encouraging others to carry out \u2018lone wolf\u2019 attacks.<\/p>\n
It included posters threatening attacks on Tower Bridge \u2013 wrongly labelled \u2018London Bridge\u2019- and Big Ben, saying: \u2018Know O Crusader that you \u2013 Allah willing \u2013 will soon be pursued in your own homeland.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ms Morgan said Shaikh \u2018personally created some of the imagery and videos and also instructed others with necessary skills to create the material, which she then circulated.\u2019<\/p>\n
The channels were run with a high degree of secrecy and technical application, storing the content in back-ups and re-creating the channels under different details whenever Telegram shut them down.<\/p>\n
Shaikh kept a \u2018banned list\u2019 of those suspected to be spies, and even created a false persona of herself as a man.<\/p>\n
Two weeks before her arrest, Shaikh boasted she was now running six \u2018brothers\u2019 channels\u2019 along with her own, but added: \u2018Alhamdullilah it\u2019s good, and it\u2019s an honur [sic] to be asked.\u2019<\/p>\n
Others included channels called Lone Wolves and Jannah is my Goal.<\/p>\n
Shaikh had 15 \u2018admins\u2019 who helped her run the GreenB1rds channel of whom seven were \u2018totally committed,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n
\u2018They will continue my work when gone inshaAllah [god willing],\u2019 Shaikh told the undercover officer.<\/p>\n
After her arrest, Shaikh told a probation officer that when she ran the chatroom she \u2018felt happier than she had ever done.\u2019<\/p>\n
She talked of having a \u2018sense of purpose and no longer feeling empty\u2019 and said that any doubt expressed about going through with the attack was mainly because her daughter had unexpectedly been returned to her care.<\/p>\n
Mr Sweeney said: \u2018I have asked myself whether life is required, and in my view, self-evidently it is, not least because it is impossible to predict whether you will be safe at the end of a determinate sentence.\u2019<\/p>\n
Courtesy: Courtesy Daily Mail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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