Jihadi office worker, 21, and his wife face life in jail

An office worker and his wife who competed over who loved jihad the most are both facing life in jail after he promised her he would murder people on their wedding day. 

Ummariyat Mirza, 21, has pleaded guilty to researching and plotting a terrorist attack using a hunting knife after drawing up a ‘hit-list’ of who they hated the most.

His wife, Madhiha Taheer, 21, an administrator for a children’s nursery, who was seven months pregnant, also faces life in jail after she was found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of one count of preparation to commit acts of terrorism.

She was convicted of paying £121 for a lethal hunting knife from Amazon and £275 for a ‘life size training dummy’ for her husband to practice his deadly attack. She also filmed herself punching it in the neck and chest.

In horrifying messages ahead of their marriage she said: ‘Can we get married already ffs [for f**k’s sake] I want u to kill ppl for me, I have a list.’

Ummariyat Mirza, 21,  and his wife, Madhiha Taheer, 21, face life in jail for terror offences including a fantasy of murdering on their wedding day

His wife, Madhiha Taheer, 21, an administrator for a children’s nursery, who was seven months pregnant, also faces life in jail for paying £121 for a lethal hunting knife from Amazon

She also bought her husband a £275 ‘life size training dummy’ for him to practice his deadly attack on. Police found it covered in knife marks

He responded by offering: ‘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.’

But Taheer told him: ‘Lool [laugh out loud], u can’t have it til u put a ring on it.’

The couple from Alum Rock, Birmingham, bonded over ISIS material on social media and competed over who was the most radical.

Taheer made a strange video of herself also punching the rubber training doll in the neck and chest

In a WhatsApp exchange on March 12 2015 Mirza told his wife: ‘I’m more radical than u, I took u in. I introduced u to dawla and Twitter and jihad. Ur my student.’

Mirza was arrested on March 29 this year, a week after Khalid Masood killed five people in Westminster including PC Keith Palmer and later pleaded guilty to preparing to commit terrorist acts.

Taheer faced a trial because she said the hunting knife was a gift to her husband because he liked Bear Grylls and hunting but she was convicted today. 

Mirza’s sister Zainub Mirza, 23, is also facing jail after she pleaded guilty to sending him a series of explicit ISIS videos, it can be revealed for the first time.

Mirza called Taheer his ‘perfect partner and soulja [soldier] and soulmate’ and she promised to emulate the couple who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. 

The couple got married seven months later and nine months after that, Mirza began planning his attack.

He practised on a life-size dummy called ‘Century Bob’ with a full-size 12ins plastic training knife bought from Amazon on February 15 this year.

He then bought a Cold Steel Leatherneck ‘Special Forces’ knife on February 23 for £121.20.

Madhiha Taheer, pictured posing with a gun, has been found guilty of one count of preparation to commit acts of terrorism

The Cold Steel Leatherneck knife bought for £121.20 using Madihah Taheer’s Halifax debit card from a website called BA Blade

Mirza made a harness so that he could hide the knife under his clothing and pull it out quickly for the attack (pictured)

CCTV showed the terror suspect buying the paracord rope from Go Outdoors in Birmingham on March 6

It was delivered to his parents’ address in the name ‘Ummar Meer, Bushcraft Reviews.’

Mirza also bought paracord rope from Go Outdoors in Birmingham on March 6 and made a harness so that he could hide the knife under his clothing and pull it out quickly for the attack.

The dummy was designed as ‘punchbag’ to be used for martial arts training, but police found that it had marks from the plastic knife on the forehead above the right eye, across the front of the throat and across the abdomen.

The day before his arrest, Mirza posted a picture of a knife to a family Whatsapp group in response to a video of a moderate speaker at the local Green Lanes Mosque, who was condemning attacks and calling for everyone to live in peace.

Detective Chief Superintendent Matt Ward, Head of West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit said the plot was typical of the ‘new terrorist threat’ in Britain.

He said Mirza ‘done all the preparation that he needed to do and could have attacked at any moment.’

Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, has said that seven plots have been foiled this year and the Alum Rock knife plot, codenamed Operation Calcitic was one.

Mirza’s sister Zainub also faces prison after admitting sending ISIS terrorist videos to her brother

At the same time as Mirza was plotting his attack, on January 10, his sister Zainub was sending him a link to an ISIS beheading video followed by the words ‘I’m proper ready inshaAllah [god willing]’.

The beheading video was 41min and 27secs long and began by showing militants firing weapons, explosions and dead fighters as an ISIS flag was raised. A young boy was seen, who then blew himself up in a car. A hostage in an orange jump suit was seen kneeling on the floor with a militant standing behind him who pulled out a knife and decapitated him, followed by the drowning in a tank of another hostage.

The next day, Zainub sent her brother a 12min 35sec ISIS propaganda video, which featured clips from films showing intelligence services. The narrator said the mujahideen had been able to ‘infiltrate the Crusaders’ on more than one occasion and a number of beheadings and executions were shown. The end of the video showed a mass execution where ‘spies’ were sat in the corner of a room and had their throats slit one by one. They were then left to hang upside down from meat hooks.

On January 13, Zainub sent a third video, this time 19 mins in length, which showed the results of Turkish airstrikes in Syria, including severely injured children. Two Turkish soldiers were seen locked in a cage then made to crawl across a desert area on their hands and knees. A button was pressed by one of the militants and both of the hostages were set on fire and left to burn to death.

After sending the video Zainub asked her brother: ‘Did you notice what the Turkish kufar says while he’s burning?’ and Mirza replied: ‘I haven’t watched it yet no spoilers!!!’

‘Oh sorry, I always expect you to watch it as soon as loool,’ Zainub said.

On January 14, Zainub sent Mirza an image of a man wearing military clothing and standing in a desert as he smiled and held two severed heads, one in each hand.

‘This photos [sic] kind of funny’, Zainub wrote. ‘Like the brothers [sic] holding two deflated footballs.’

This image was found on Madihah Taheer’s mobile phone, showing a young boy executing a prisoner with a handgun

Documents about making ‘expedient homemade firearms’ was also found in the couple’s home

On Taheer’s iPad there was this image of a Muslim woman watching an apparent jihadi walking into the distance with the words: “Go find us that Jannah” [paradise].

Later, she added: ‘Some are scared to use knives to the throat whilst others are not.’ Mirza commented: ‘Like women enit’ and Zainub replied: ‘No I could slit a throat easy now alhamdulillah [praise god]. Hold the nose while I’m doing it too.’

Zainub sent Taheer the drowning video, called Procession of Light, on January 23, although Taheer later denied viewing it. 

Taheer claimed in court that her husband was a Bear Grylls fan and she thought he was going to use the weapon to skin rabbits on a romantic holiday to a country cottage before she gave birth. 

The violent imagery continued on October 1, when Mirza commented, about the same person: ‘I legit want to stab him 27 times, like really fast ones, like brutal an fast. Trust me.’

She responded: ‘Sounds so satisfying.’

He added: ‘It’s my dream, the method.’

‘OMG [oh my god] mine too,’ she responded, before adding: ‘Not stab 27 times but to hurt/kill him in some way.’

Mirza explained: ‘Stabbing kuffar [non-believers]/munafiq [hypocrites] fastly and brutally is my dream. I have a knife I want u to buy me.’

Taheer said she did not have the money but she used her mother’s money to buy him a dummy made of neoprene, asking on May 31: ‘Has my gift come?’

When he hurt his hand punching it, Mirza complained he wanted one made of plastisol.

‘I’m telling you wallah [I swear to god], I know I won’t use this one as much as the other. I know the difference in feeling. Same way I like hitting u. It’s fun, it feels nice to hit skin, to feel flesh contort under the force.’

By January 12, Mirza was pressing to buy a knife, writing that he was ‘just chilling gunna order my knife today inshaAllah [god willing]’ adding: ‘What weapon shall I get? I don’t need ur suggestions actually.’

But Taheer, who was pregnant, complained: ‘It’s so much money Ummar, is it really necessary to spend that much? We’ve got bills to pay man, baby’s thing to get. Have to be sensible and think with a straight head. Can u not use any dishum [knife]. It doesn’t have to be bloody state of the art.’

‘This isnt a fantasy, its real. Wallahi [I swear] its real as it gets,’ Mirza replied.

‘Its just going to sit at home Ummar, Ur not gonna carry it around with u all the time. Imagine if u get caught with it, or it falls out, £300 is not a joke Ummar. Is there not a cheaper one u could buy? They all do the same friggin thing Ummar, u don’t need to spend £300 on one.’

He responded: ‘K.’

John McGuinness, prosecuting told the jury: ‘She’s not complaining about the fact that he is buying a knife or what it is for, but at a time when money is tight she is asking if it’s necessary to spend so much money on the knife.’

Chemical analysis proved that marks on the dummy came from the plastic training knife.

‘The prosecution suggest that the expert evidence is consistent with the plastic knife being used to thrust and stab at the training dummy and at what, for a real person, would be vulnerable parts of the body,’ Mr McGuinness said.

In court Taheer said she hoped Mirza would grow out of his obsession with jihad, that he was always putting things off and that talking about it was the only way she could get through to him.