‘Kill till I’m dead’

A female jihadi planned to kill tourists and worshippers at St Paul’s Cathedral in a suicide attack, a court heard.

Safiyya Amira Shaikh, 36, carried out a reconnaissance trip to the City of London to scope out the landmark as a potential target while staying in a hotel.

She tried to make contact with a bomb maker online and asked them to build two improvised explosive devices while plotting the attack between 19 August and 10 October last year.

Shaikh later met with her contact, and handed them two bags, in which the IEDs were to be placed, not realising she was an undercover officer.

Prosecutors said she intended to leave one of the devices in the hotel and then carry the other into St Paul’s, where she would detonate it, killing herself and as many other innocent people as possible.

Shaikh prepared the words for a pledge of allegiance to Daesh, also known as ISIS, while spreading terrorist publications via groups on encrypted messaging platform Telegram.

She messaged one of them via an encrypted social media app.

“I want to kill a lot,” she told the officer. “I would like to do church… a day like Christmas or Easter good, kill more.

“I always send threats. But I want to make threats real.”

She sent a picture of St Paul’s Cathedral to the officer and wrote: “I would like to do this place for sure.

“I would like bomb and shoot ’til death… I really would love to destroy that place and the kaffir [enemies of IS] there.”

Just over a week later she visited St Paul’s and sent videos to her contact, writing: “I will to the bomb under the dome.

“I will also do something in hotel, then church, then kill til I’m dead.”

She appeared in the dock today (Fri) dressed in black and admitted preparing acts of terror and disseminating terrorist publications while flanked by three prison officers.

Mr Justice Sweeney said she would be remanded in custody at HMP Bronzefield until her sentence on 11 May when defence lawyers will have served mental health reports.

Shaikh had been planning the terrorist plot for around two months before officer from Scotland Yard’s counter terror unit moved in and arrested her.

Shaikh of Grange Road, Hayes, north west London admitted preparation of acts of terror and disseminating terrorist publications.