isis computer
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
A former British glamour model being groomed online as a 'jihadist bride' by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS, ISIL) says she is considering visiting the Turkey-Syria border for a third time in the next few months, but denies she wants to join the terrorist group.

Kimberley Miners, a former page three girl who has posed topless for the Sun newspaper, has allegedly been in contact with a British fighter in Syria, Abu Usama Al Britani, who is trying to recruit women to the terrorist group via Facebook.

According to the Times, Miners, 27, from Bradford, has been questioned by anti-terrorism police and MI5 up to four times due to her sharing IS videos on Facebook.

Miners, who uses social media under the alias of Aisha Lauren al-Britaniya, claims despite her "posting a lot of bombs and stuff" on social media, her interest in Islam is merely to find "peace."

She says she has plans to travel to Turkey this autumn and has gone there twice on "holiday" in October last year. Turkey is the most common route to enter Syria.

However, she says she has no aspiration to marry a jihadist and does not support IS brutalities.

She says she is drawn to Syria because of the plight of children there, and her past trips to the Turkey-Syria border she spent time in migrant camps there.

"I remember seeing a three-year-old and a little baby at the side of the road.

"I felt like I needed to carry on telling everyone this is what's really going on. I just want to help the children ... it's so sad what they're going through."

Miners says she was told IS was there to protect religion, but admitted her involvement had "got her into trouble."

She added: "I've gone from glamour model to something completely different. But that again makes you wonder. You don't get s**t for wearing nowt but the second you start wearing the veil you get accused of extremism."

When going out in the city, Miners wears western outfits and leaves her face and hair uncovered, apparently because she was abused when she went out in the traditional veiled Islamic costume.

There are concerns Miners is following in the footsteps of 'White Widow' Sally Jones, who fled to Syria with her son JoJo in 2013, where she and the child converted to Islam and joined IS.


Comment: Some more context from the Sun:
[Abu Usamah al-Britani] appears to be brazenly using social media to groom a new generation of jihadist brides from Britain and the West. In one message last week he posted an image of a kitten wearing a suicide belt along with a caption threatening bombings against Shi'ite Muslims. Miners responded with a string of jokey emojis.

Miners, who comes from a Christian family, first appeared in the national media in 2009 when she was juggling her job as a street cleaner in Bradford with a fledgling career as a topless model. ... Her transformation is thought to have begun about a year later when she was deeply affected by the death of her father, Anthony, in a freak drowning. A relative said that "she never recovered from it." Miners appears to have found solace in the company of Muslim friends, including another white convert. ... She said her interest in Islam was sparked last year, adding: "I found peace through it all," Miners said from her semi-detached home.
...
Asked if she supported Isis, she added: "We get told that they are there to protect the religion. I don't really know - that's what's got me into trouble." And she admitted she was in contact with Abu Usamah last month. Miners added: "He was saying, 'If you can leave England, then just leave.'"
ISIS and their recruiters rely on this kind of ignorance in order to fish out amenable individuals. Speaking of which, just who exactly is this Abu Usamah al-Britani? Would he happen to be employed by MI6?


19yo Australian 'kangaroo bomb' plotter sentenced to 10 yrs

A teenager accused of plotting a terrorist attack on a major public holiday in Australia, which involved beheading a policeman and running him over, has been given a 10-year sentence. One of his other plots envisaged attaching a bomb to a kangaroo and setting it loose.

19-year-old Sevdet Ramadan Besim was facing several terror-related charges, and pleaded guilty to one of them. On Monday, the Victorian Supreme Court handed a 10-year sentence to Besim after he confessed he planned to run down a policeman and behead him on Anzac Day last year.

Besim must now spend at least seven and a half years in prison before he can apply for parole. Had he not pleaded guilty, he would have been handed a 15-year sentence.

Justice Michael Croucher said Besim had a "putrid act" in mind which sought to spark fear in the community, and advance jihadist ideology.

"To the vast majority of the community, it's unfathomable an 18-year-old boy planned to kill a law enforcement officer, to crash into him with a car and then behead him with a knife," Croucher said.

Besim, who earlier said he would "love to take out some cops," planned his attack on Anzac Day to "make sure the dogs remember this as well as there [sic] fallen heros [sic]."

The teenager who had been seeing a moderate imam, would be undergoing a de-radicalization program.

"I'm not persuaded to accept ... he has in fact renounced violent jihadism," the judge said. However, he stressed that there remain good prospects for Besim's rehabilitation given the teenager's contrition, guilty plea and strong support from his family and friends.

The court said there was clear evidence that Besim had been radicalized by older extremists he met at now defunct Al-Furqan Islamic Centre in the UK.

The death of his friend, Numan Haider, is said to have had a huge effect on Besim's state of mind. Haider was shot dead for stabbing two police officers in 2014.

Besim had been previously suspected of holding discussions about the Anzac Day terror plot with a UK teenager. The two also allegedly talked about painting a kangaroo with an Islamic State symbol and stuffing its pouch with explosives to later "set it loose" on police officers.

Besim was one of the five teenagers arrested during police raids in April 2015 in Melbourne in connection to the foiled terror plot.

Marked on April 25 each year, Anzac Day was originally to honor soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. 2015 marked the centenary of that campaign.