A female supporter of the terrorist group Islamic State on Friday pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb London’s historic St Paul’s Cathedral and an unnamed hotel in the capital.
Safiyya Amira Shaikh, 36, from Middlesex in southeast England, admitted to the preparation of terrorist acts and dissemination of terrorist publications. She spoke at a hearing at Central London Criminal Court.
The woman, who was born Michelle Ramsden, faces a life sentence.
Shaikh, who converted to Islam in 2007, began to follow extremists online and by 2015 had become radicalised. She also shared terrorist documents through groups using the Telegram messaging app between August 2019 and October 2019.
The case prosecution summary said Shaikh said her main aim was to kill as many people as possible in a suicide attack on the historic site.
“I want to kill a lot,” she told the undercover officer, posing as an online explosives expert. “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 ISIS] there.”
She is to be sentenced May 12.