Training for terror in the Second City Fanatics made single-finger ISIS salute at paintball bonding session as they ‘prepared for battle’

THIS is the chilling picture of four Birmingham men training for terror at a Solihull paintballing centre.

Trainee bricklayer Humza Ali has been convicted of trying to join Islamic State after training for battle with other jihadi wannabes at Delta Force Paintballing in Hockley Heath.

Ali, a student at South and City College, posed for “promotional” pictures alongside Mohammed Ali Ahmed, Gabriel Rasmus and Abdelatif Gaini.

The men, some of whom can be seen making the single-fingered salute of IS, are pictured together at a ‘bonding’ event.

It was just seven months before border staff sent Ali packing from Turkey and back to Britain.

A three-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court heard that 20-year-old Ali wanted to “fight until I die” in Syria.

He was covertly recorded telling a fifth ISIS sympathiser that his mother had confiscated his passport in 2013.

Ali, of Bromford Lane, Ward End, told a friend: “By Allah I’m so stressed. All I want is to go there and just fight until I die, God willing.”

The court heard Ali went paintballing with 27-year-old Ali Ahmed, from Coventry Road, Small Heath. Ahmed was recently jailed for eight years for his part in handing £3,000 to Brussels “man in the hat” bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini in Small Heath Park.

The images, recovered from Ali’s phone, also show him with Ahmed and Rasmus in June 2014, posing beside a tank at Delta Force in Cut Throat Lane.

Three of the men can be seen making the IS salute as another unsuspecting paintballer sits in the foreground with her back to the camera.

Rasmus, 29, of Chain Walk, Lozells, was jailed for four years at the Old Bailey last month after being arrested in April last year at Dover while en route to Syria to engage in terrorism.

Abdelatif Gaini, 41 – the fourth man seen crouching near a military vehicle – is now thought to be in Syria fighting for ISIS.

Prosecutor Anne Whyte QC said the paintball sessions were, in fact, preparation for battle.

She told jurors: “If you step back you will understand that for an inexperienced but committed young man like Humza Ali, who intends to leave his Western urban life for war in the Middle East, the opportunities for handling anything remotely resembling a type of firearm are extremely limited.

“Membership, for example, of a gun club might draw unwanted attention, but the occasional paintballing session with friends is ideal – however bizarre that may seem – and at least enables the participant to handle a type of weapon and to take broad aim.”

She added: “Should you be in any doubt about the serious intent behind this activity in June 2014, you will be able to consider evidence which, we say, demonstrates that this was, in fact, a sort of training exercise and of itself an act of preparation.

“During it, the participants posed for photographs in quasi-combat gear, holding their paint-filled weapons, including Ali. They were able to use the occasion to take a sort of promotional photo sealing their common sense of identity.

“There is no coincidence about Ali’s chosen companions. It was a bonding act of preparation between men of like mind and like intent.

“They were doing what passed, in their limited circumstances, for training. Three, including Ali, have been thwarted in their plans to get to Syria.”

Ahmed paid for the paintballing exercise, added Miss Whyte, who told jurors that he had already pleaded guilty to an offence under the Terrorism Act.

Jurors convicted Ali, who will be sentenced in January, of attempting to travel to Syria for terrorist purposes via Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and also disseminating numerous video messages to other men, showing beheadings and atrocities carried out by IS.

He was also found guilty of sending a malicious communication after directing “abusive” anti-democracy messages at a local councillor.

Ali, who lives with his parents, had told his trial he had no intention of travelling to Syria when he made his way by sea and air to Istanbul via Ireland in January 2015.

The jury heard how Ali − together with Ali Akbar Zeb, 19, from Northleigh Road, Birmingham, who pleaded guilty at the start of the trial to three counts of distributing extremist literature – shared graphic images and videos via a Whatsapp group to promote IS.

Both will be sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court on January 30.