Mr & Mrs Jihad
Facing life in prison, fanatics who planned knife attack on troops to celebrate their wedding day
A COUPLE plotted to kill British troops with a hunting knife to celebrate their wedding day.
Madihah Taheer, 21, bought the 12-inch blade for her husband Ummariyat Mirza and told him: ‘I want you to kill people for me.’
Taheer, an administrator at a children’s nursery, also bought a ‘life-size training dummy’ for her 21-year- old partner to practise his deadly attack.
When it was later found by police at their Birmingham home, the dummy had slash marks across its forehead, throat and abdomen.
Taheer, who was seven-months pregnant when she was arrested, also filmed herself punching it in the neck and chest. Woolwich Crown Court yesterday heard how the pair swapped a series of messages before their marriage in April last year in which they competed over who loved jihad the most.
Taheer wrote: ‘ Can we get married already ffs (for f***’s sake). I want u to kill ppl for me, I have a list.’ He responded by saying: ‘The day of nikkah (wedding), I’ll kill em all. Give me the list, the only thing that stops me is we are not married. I will defo, I’m not joking.’
Taheer refused to send him the list until she had a ring on her finger. On one occasion, Mirza sent her a message saying: ‘ I’m more radical than u, I took u in. I introduced u to jihad. Ur my student.’ Mirza called his wife the ‘perfect partner and soulja (soldier) and soulmate’.
Taheer said she fantasised about beheading MailOnline columnist Katie Hopkins. Taheer wrote: ‘ She’s the biggest kuthi (bitch) of them all.’ She also promised to emulate the couple who killed 14 and injured 22 others in a terror attack in San Bernardino, California, in 2015.
Mirza, who worked for an accountancy firm in Birmingham, admitted researching and plotting a terrorist attack using a hunting knife. His wife was found guilty yesterday of preparing for terrorist acts.
Both are facing life in jail when they are sentenced.
Mirza’s sister Zainub, 23, is also facing jail after she admitted sending him Islamic State propaganda videos showing beheadings. Mirza and his sibling were arrested on March 29, a week after Khalid Masood killed five people including a policeman in Westminster – the first of five terror attacks in the UK this year. Sources close to the investigation said Mirza was also planning to launch an attack on RAF personnel based near his home in Birmingham. A month before his arrest he conducted an internet search for ‘RAF’, which brought up an air force careers office in Birmingham. He then searched for Mohammed Emwazi, the IS killer known as Jihadi John. Five days later, Mirza looked at online lists of Jewish communities in London and Birmingham. Finally on March 9, he trawled Google using search terms including ‘barracks in Birming- ham’ and ‘Territorial Army in Birmingham’.
Mirza had practised stabbing on the dummy – a lifelike sparring device called ‘Century Bob’ used by boxers and martial artists – with a training knife.
He then bought ‘special forces’ knife a week later for £121 using a debit card his wife lent him.
Mirza bought a rope from a camping shop and made a harness so that he could hide the
‘You are my soldier and soulmate’ ‘Violent disturbing, extremist material’
knife under his clothing and pull it out quickly for the attack.
The day before his arrest, he posted a picture of a knife on a family WhatsApp group in response to a video of a moderate speaker at a local mosque, who was condemning terror attacks and calling for peace.
The court was told the pair had initially hoped to travel to Syria to aid the Islamic State group but decided to carry out an attack in their home city instead. Matt Ward, head of counter terrorism at West Midlands Police, said the plot was typical of the ‘new terrorist threat’.
He said: ‘They were sharing some really violent disturbing extremist material that gave instructions of how to carry out bladed weapons attacks on innocent members of the public.
‘I’m not going to confirm or deny any of the targets but there was a clear intention to plan for and carry out a terrorist attack.
‘Had we not acted when we did then there would have been a further atrocity carried out in addition to the ones we have already seen carried out this year in London and Manchester.’