UK ex-model claims ISIS recruiter groomed her to be next White Widow

London, June 21

A former UK glamour model has claimed she was groomed by a Pakistani-origin Islamic State recruiter to become the next "White Widow" in Syria.

Kimberley Miners said she was brainwashed by the Islamic State recruiter Naweed Hussain on Facebook who wanted to marry her and sent her "hundreds of messages" a day.

Hussain, a Briton of Pakistani-origin who joined Islamic State in Syria in June 2015, was killed last year.

The 29-year-old Miners told The Sun that Islamic State operatives wanted her to become the next "White Widow", she said, referring to Sally Jones, another British female recruit from Kent who moved to Syria with her son and was killed in an airstrike last year.

"I was totally taken in. I was groomed and I fell for it. I was a propaganda trophy to be won. I dread to think what would have happened," she said.

The western girls who travel to Iraq and Syria to marry Islamic State terrorists are described as White Widow.

Miners was arrested after counter-terrorism police intercepted messages from Hussain asking her to come to Syria. Police directed her to take a terrorism prevention course, but she dropped out and was arrested in October 2016.

She was released with no further action in March last year but said she had been warned that she could spend 10 years in prison.

Miners said that she had taken to social media after losing her baby and fiancé and "was all alone".

She added: “I was upset by what was happening in Syria to the children. I started sharing videos of bomb attacks. I soon started receiving lots of friend requests from people in Syria”.

“It's embarrassing now but I liked the attention. People have no idea, but ISIS is actively searching Facebook for vulnerable people. People just like me.” PTI