A 27-year-old British model named Kimberley Miners, who was earlier suspected to have been groomed by a recruiter for the Islamic State group, has been arrested by the police and questioned over her involvement with the terror outfit after photos of her clad in burka surfaced online.
Miners, who had attained some amount of fame by posing topless for the Sun, was on Friday questioned by policemen from the North East Counter Terrorism Unit after her arrest. She was already suspected to be involved with the Islamic State group — also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) — and had been warned repeatedly against contacting members of the terrorist group.
According to reports from the United Kingdom, the model was going by the name Aisha Lauren al-Britaniya following her conversion to Islam last year. She had used Facebook to contact a person presumed to have been an Isis recruiter in Syria, and had regular conversations with him.
With the terrorist group increasingly losing ground in Iraq and Syria, where it originated and has implemented a self-styled 'caliphate,' Isis has been increasingly looking abroad for new recruits. While impressionable boys are known to have been used by the group as foot-soldiers and an opportunity to chest-thump, young women and girls have often ended up as "jihadi brides" or sex slaves. Sources say Miners was being groomed for the former role.
Among the things that led to her arrest were regular Facebook posts of women brandishing weapons and — by her own admission — "a lot of bombs and stuff." The latter runs contrary to her claim that she had turned to Islam for peace. That she visited Turkey twice did not seem to have helped her case.
