A 27-year-old former glamour model is the latest target for Islamic State (IS) recruiters in Britain, West Yorkshire Police has warned.
An investigation by The Sunday Times revealed that Kimberley Miners, who converted to Islam following the death of her father in 2009, now goes by the online moniker Aisha Lauren al-Britaniya.
A former street sweeper, Miners once graced page 3 of The Sun as an aspiring topless model, but now complains of being harassed when going out in Islamic dress, including a full-face veil.
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"I've gone from glamour model to something completely different," she said. "You don’t get s**t for wearing nowt, but the second you start wearing [the veil] you get accused [of extremism] and stuff."
On her social media accounts, she shares images of Islamic State fighters and jihadist propaganda, including pictures of veiled women brandishing weapons.
However, Miners told the Sunday Times that she did not always understand the Arabic posts and videos she was sharing, and insisted she does not condone IS atrocities.
Although she acknowledged that she had visited Turkey twice last October, Miners insisted that this was to carry out charity work.
"I just want to help them children," she said of the Syrian refugee camps she had visited on the Turkish border. "It's so sad what they're going through," she told the newspaper.
Her online activity seems to have aroused the attention of anti-terror authorities, however, who fear that she is being groomed to join more than 100 British women and girls who have travelled to Syria after being recruited online.
Miners admitted that she was in contact with Abu Usamah al-Britani, accused of being an IS recruiter, and said he had urged her to travel to Syria to join IS's self-declared caliphate. However, she maintains that she has no intention of crossing the Syrian border to become a jihadi bride.
Asked point-blank if she was an IS supporter, Miners apparently hesitated. "We get told that they are there to protect the religion," she said. "I don't really know; that's what's got me into trouble."
