MAIN PLAYERS IN ALLWOMEN TERROR CELL
0 Safaa Boular, inset, was 16 when she was wooed online by 32-year-old Coventry-born IS fighter Naweed Hussain, above Britain’s youngest female terror plotter has been found guilty of preparing an attack on London with the first all-woman Islamic State cell.
Safaa Boular, now 18, secretly discussed the murderous scheme with her sister and mother using coded language which had an Alice in Wonderland tea party theme.
Her sister Rizlaine, 22, bought a large knife to bring carnage to Westminster in April last year.
Boular first began planning a grenade and gun attack on the British Museum when she was thwarted from joining her IS husband in Syria.
She passed the baton to her sibling after she was arrested and remanded in custody for trying to travel to the war zone.
Following an Old Bailey trial, she was found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism abroad and in the UK.
Boular made no reaction in the dock as she was found guilty yesterday by a jury after two days of deliberations.
Judge Mark Dennis QC put off sentencing for around six weeks for a report to be compiled.
Boularistheyoungestfemale to be charged with planning an IS attack in the UK.
Her fellow plotters admitted their roles before the trial and they will be sentenced at a later date.
The women were caught in a “proactive” investigation involving surveillance by counter-terrorism police and MI5 agents posing online as IS operatives.
Counter-terrorism chief Dean Haydon, of Scotland Yard, said the case demonstrated a worrying rise in youngsters being arrested for terrorism.
The court heard how Boular was just 16 when she was wooed online by Coventryborn IS fighter Naweed Hussain, 32.
The couple got married in an online ceremony and talked of donning his-and-hers suicide belts to achieve martyrdom together.
Police uncovered Boular’s plans to join him following an airport stop in August 2016 and confiscated her passport.
While on bail, Boular turned her attention to an attack on the British Museum, encouraged by Hussain in “loveydovey” messages.
Burka-wearing Boular also scoped out the MI6 headquarters near her home, and took a selfie in front of the building, the court heard.
Hussain was lured into revealing his murderous intentions to British secret service agents posing as IS supporters online before he was killed in a drone strike.
When an agent pretending to be his commander informed Boular of his death on 4 April last year, she was wracked by grief and resolved to join him.
She revealed to the undercover officer that Hussain had talked about attacking the British Museum with a “tokarev” Russian-made pistol and “pineapples” - code for grenades.
On being remanded in custody over her attempt to travel to Syria, Boular persuaded fellow IS supporter Rizlaine Boular to take up the baton.
In coded telephone calls involving their mother Mina Dich, 44, the sisters discussed a traditional English tea party with an Alice in Wonderland theme. ● The teenage terrorist: Safaa Boular was the youngest female to be charged with Islamic State terror plotting in the UK.
She claimed it was all a romantic fantasy between a lonely young British girl and her older, more worldly IS boyfriend, saying: “Nothing online is real.”
Boular would spend up to 12 hours a day locked in a longdistance flirtation with Naweed Hussain in Raqqa.
The couple bonded over TV game shows, gory beheadings, naked selfies, and a stream of childish chatter littered with LOLS and emojis. ● The sister: Rizlaine Boular, 22, was the first to show signs of radicalisation in 2014 when she attempted to travel to Syria to become a jihadi bride.
When she was stopped, the ardent IS supporter was swiftly “married off” to a local imam by her mother.
But it soon broke down and the mother of one moved into a women’s refuge. ● The mother: Frenchmoroccan Mina Dich, 44, split up with her husband in February 2006 and brought up her four children as a single parent in south London.
She worked part-time and kept her daughters at home, cooking and cleaning for the household.
Over time, she became more religious and made her daughters observe strict Muslim traditions, including wearing a full burka. ● The friend: Khawla Barghouthi, 21, was in on the “party” and was recorded by police enthusiastically discussing it with her friend Rizlaine Boular.
On a visit to Barghouthi’s home in Willesden, north west London, Rizlaine even practised for her knife attack.
Barghouthi was married to Mohammed Amoudi, who was known to have attempted to travel to Syria to join IS, taking two 16-year-old boys with him, but was arrested in Turkey and sent home. ● The IS boyfriend: Hirsute and bespectacled Naweed Hussain, 32, made for an unlikely IS Lothario.
He had left his first wife and family behind in Coventry to become an IS fighter in June 2015.
Hussain was thought to be based in Raqqa and on 3 April 2017 was blown up in a drone strike.
Before then, he had made repeated attempts to woo women online, including a Sun Page 3 model posing as a Muslim convert.