5 years jail for British mother who posted ‘jihadi’ photos on social media

A British mother of six has been sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of promoting terrorism on Facebook.

Runa Khan, from Luton, admitted to inciting terrorism in Syria and posting a picture of a suicide vest on her social media page. Additionally, she admitted to providing details of a route into Syria to an undercover officer posing as an aspiring jihadi.

In September 2013, Khan also posted an article called ‘Raising Mujahid children,’ which according to the court was a manual designed to teach terrorism.

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She also posted on an internet forum her hopes that her son would become a jihadi, writing: “I pictured the future while I was zipping up his jacket, in sha Allah, I’ll be tying the shahada bandana round his forehead and hand him his rifle and send him out to play the big boys game.”

During her sentencing, the court heard evidence Khan had posted pictures of her sons holding guns and swords on her twitter account. According to Judge Peter Birts QC, the evidence suggested she was trying to ‘radicalize’ others.

Speaking on BBC Newsnight before sentencing, Khan said she did not “believe in going and blowing myself up in a shopping center where there are going to be innocent children,” and that she was “posting up” her beliefs.

“And when I spoke about suicide missions, I only spoke about it because it's a much feared war tactic, which should only be used in a battlefield, not anywhere else,” she added.

Khan’s counsel in her defense statement said that she was “extremely insecure, unsophisticated, binary in her thought processes ... devoid of any proper ... reasonable Islamic teaching.”

Khan’s jailing comes as another British Jihadi fighting with the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) was killed fighting in Kobani.

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Rashid Amani, 19, from Coventry, is believed to have been killed while fighting in Northern Syria in a US airstrike, having travelled to the country with Mohammed Hadi and Ali Kalantar in March this year.

Kalantar, 18, was reportedly killed by a French airstrike in the Iraqi city of Tikrit last week. His death was reported on social media by his ‘wife’, British national Nahra Halane.