British 'jihadist' mum threatens to behead Christians: reports

London (AFP) - A middle-aged British mother-of-two and former rock band member has joined jihadists in Syria and wants to behead Christians with a "blunt knife", British media reported.

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The reports identified the woman as Sally Jones, 45, from Kent in southeast England, and said she now goes by the name Sakinah Hussain, or Umm Hussain al-Britani.

Security experts estimate that hundreds of Britons have gone to the Middle East to join the Islamic State (IS) militant group, the most brutal to emerge out of Syria's bloody civil war and the most successful.

The well-funded group controls large swathes of Syria and Iraq and has proved adept at using social media to boost its profile, attract recruits and terrify enemies with images of mass executions and battlefield victories.

Last week another female British jihadist reportedly in Syria, known as Khadijah Dare, purportedly tweeted that she wanted to be the first woman to kill a British or US "terrorist".

The Daily Mail and the Sunday Times alleged that Jones, a convert to Islam, travelled to Syria after an online romance with convicted 20-year-old computer hacker Junaid Hussain, and is now based in the IS stronghold of Raqa.

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This undated file still image from video released April 7, 2011, by GlobalPost, shows James Foley of …

The Sunday Times said she had tweeted last week saying: "You Christians all need beheading with a nice blunt knife and stuck on the railing at raqqa... Come here I'll do it for you!"

Jones' Twitter account was still active on Monday, but could not be independently verified and the post quoted by the newspaper was not on her timeline.

The alleged threat is likely to be taken seriously by British security agencies after an IS video posted online last month showed a man with a British accent appearing to behead US freelance journalist James Foley.

The brazen execution heaped pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to toughen anti-jihadist security measures, and Britain has since raised its terror alert level to "severe", citing the threat from returning jihadists.

Jones' twitter account banner page features a photo of man who appears to be Junaid Hussain, and another tweet says she and her "husband" -- presumably Junaid -- had been stuck in Syria's northwestern city of Idlib for seven months before joining the "khilafa".

The "khilafa" is the Arabic word for caliphate, a sovereign, religiously led state IS have declared in lands they control.

Cameron is expected to outline tougher measures against jihadist suspects later on Monday.

Reports: 'Jihadist' mom wants to behead Christians

A middle-aged mother and former rock band member has joined Islamic militants in Syria, British media report.
'Blunt knife'

Russia is threatening to use nuclear weapons if Ukrainian forces continue to fight pro-Russia separatists, the Ukrainian Defense Minister is claiming.

On Monday, Defense Minister Valeriy Heltey wrote on his Facebook page that Russia is making threats of a nuclear attack against the country if the war continues.

“The Russian side has threatened on several occasions across unofficial channels that, in the case of continued resistance they are ready to use a tactical nuclear weapon against us,” Heletey wrote.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has escalated rapidly after more than 1,000 Russian troops poured across the border last week. Fighting has picked up between both sides, and there are reports that Russian troops massacred hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers who were trying to retreat.

The alleged mass killing took place outside a besieged city about 22 miles east of Donetsk. Reports say that Russian troops initially agreed to let the Ukrainian troops retreat, but then reneged and opened fire, leaving hundreds of bodies littered along an agreed retreat route.

Lt. Col. Nikolai Gordienko, of the Ukrainian National Guard, said: “They were given the corridor to exit and they were shot. It is a violation of international conventions.”

The international community has condemned Russia’s actions and undertaken a series of sanctions meant to squeeze them out with economic pressure. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has even claimed that Russia is effectively waging war against the entire EU.

“It is the fact that Russia is in a war state against Ukraine. That means it is in a state of war against a country which would like to be closely integrated with the EU. Practically Russia is in a state of war against Europe,” she said.

“That means we need to help Ukraine to… defend its territory and its people and to help militarily, especially with the military materials to help Ukraine to defend itself because today Ukraine is fighting a war on behalf of all Europe,” the leader of the former Soviet state said.

But amid the pressure and reports that Russia is making nuclear threats against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has remained unmoved. This week he reportedly told outgoing European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso that he could “take Kiev in two weeks” if he wanted, Italian media reports have said.

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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian police displayed in a Lima airport police hangar on Monday what officials called the largest cocaine haul ever in the Andean nation, 7.7 metric tons (8.5 tons).

Seized in a raid last week, the drugs were flown to the capital Monday and unloaded in boxes from an Antonov police transport plane by officers wearing white jackets and surgical masks.

Interior Minister Daniel Urresti, flanked by the police chief and counternarcotics commander, touted the seizure from a stage set up in the hangar, a banner behind him proclaiming "Historic Blow to Illegal Drug Trafficking."

Authorities last week found the plastic-wrapped cocaine bricks inserted and sealed inside chunks of coal in a rural home near the northern port of Trujillo. Six Peruvians and two Mexicans were arrested.

Police said the drugs had been destined for Spain and Belgium and said agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were involved in the operation.

Previously, Peru's top cocaine seizure was 6 metric tons discovered in January 2002 in a truck in the southern state of Arequipa bound for a fishing vessel at the port of Ilo, from where it was to sail to Mexico, the counternarcotics police said in response to an Associated Press query.

Since 2012, Peru has been the world's top producer of cocaine.

Peru's police spotlight a record cocaine haul

The drugs were sealed inside chunks of coal and destined for Europe before they were seized last week, officials say.
7.7 metric tons