YOUNGEST FEMALE ISIS TERRORIST FACES JAIL
Detained at 17 after MI6 selfie
If we had not arrested her, Safaa Boular would have caused injury and death COMMANDER DEAN HAYDON COUNTER-TERROR COMMAND
BRITAIN’S youngest female Islamic State terrorist has been found guilty of plotting an attack with her mother and her sister.
Safaa Boular, now 18, was held after taking selfies outside the MI6 headquarters on what police called “hostile reconnaissance”.
Sister Rizlaine, 22, and mother Mina Dich, 44, then bought knives and scouted out Westminster landmarks in April last year.
Behind bars, Safaa used coded calls with an Alice in Wonderland theme to discuss the plot.
Security forces were monitoring the UK’s first all-female terror cell and armed police swooped, shooting Rizlaine as she practised attack moves in a flat.
Commander Dean Haydon, of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said of Safaa: “If we hadn’t arrested her, she would have caused injury and death.”
He added: “It is the first family unit linked to Daesh directed to commit an attack here.”
In 2014, her sister Rizlaine had tried to become a jihadi bride.
Two years later Safaa was being groomed online by IS fighter Naweed Hussain, originally of Coventry, who was fighting in Syria.
In August 2016, police stopped her at Stansted Airport, returning from Morocco. She admitted planning to travel to Syria but was released.
She and Hussain plotted for her to attack the British Museum using grenades.
After he was killed in April last year, Safaa was encouraged to carry out an attack by her mother and sister. When Safaa was remanded, Rizlaine, of Clerkenwell, North East London, took over the plans.
Duncan Atkinson QC, prosecuting, said: “This was an attack intended to involve death.”
Her sister and mother, who pleaded guilty, were arrested on April 27 with friend Khawla Barghouthi, 21, who admitted failing to inform authorities. They will be sentenced later. HOME Secretary Sajid Javid has called for new measures to disrupt terrorist plots earlier as he unveiled plans for MI5 intelligence to be shared with councils, government officials and police.