An English glamour model has spoken out on how she was brainwashed by an ISIS recruiter before she then made to move to Syria to become the next White Widow.
The young lady identified as Kimberley Miners, 29, from London, says Naweed Hussain, an ISIS recruiter targeted her via Facebook. Naweed died in an airstrike in February.
Miners said she was groomed to become the next “White Widow” after Sally Jones, a mom of one gave her life for the case early in the year.
Anti-terror police arrested Miners last year after stumbling upon correspondence between her and Hussain, which included a bomb-making manual. She was soon released after police realized she had been duped.
Miss Miners speaking with The Sun said she had “totally fallen for it” after suffering a miscarriage and breaking up with her fiance.
She said:
I started sharing videos of bomb attacks in the hope of showing people what was going on. I soon started receiving lots of friend requests from people in Syria. They’d message me on Facebook.
It’s embarrassing now but I liked the attention. I’d been so lonely. Now I felt I finally belonged.
I craved the attention, the respect and the offers of friendship.
Miss Miners was first noticed by Hussain after she began sharing the videos of Syria and got in touch with her. Miners said in no time Hussain convinced her to change her name to Aisha Lauren al-Britaniya. Miners said one of her online friends included 15-year-old Amira Abase, who travelled to Syria with two school friends, and Sally Jones. Towards the end of 2015, police became aware of Miss Miners and monitored her weekly.
Miners attended a terrorism prevention course and also therapy sessions to identify possible triggers for her behaviour but stopped attending the course. At this point, Hussain told her to start using Telegram, an encrypted messaging service, where they could communicate. He invited her to Turkey where he said he would meet her and take her to Syria.
Shortly after, anti-terror police intervened and arrested her. Miss Miners was initially told she would face ten years in prison but was later released from bail without any further action in January.
Hussain died a few weeks later in a drone strike