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| St Paul's bomb plot: IS supporter Safiyya Shaikh pleads guilty | St Paul's bomb plot: IS supporter Safiyya Shaikh pleads guilty |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| A supporter of the banned Islamic State terror group has admitted plotting to blow herself up in a bomb attack on St Paul's Cathedral. | A supporter of the banned Islamic State terror group has admitted plotting to blow herself up in a bomb attack on St Paul's Cathedral. |
| Safiyya Shaikh, of Hayes, west London, went on a reconnaissance trip to scope out the London landmark and a hotel. | |
| The 36-year-old, born Michelle Ramsden, was arrested after asking an undercover police officer to supply bombs. | |
| At the Old Bailey she admitted preparing an act of terrorism and will be sentenced in May. | |
| Over the two months before her arrest in October 2019, Shaikh built up a relationship with two undercover officers who were posing as a husband and wife extremist team. | |
| She messaged one of them via an encrypted social media app. | |
| 'Bomb under the dome' | |
| "I want to kill a lot," she told the officer. "I would like to do church... a day like Christmas or Easter good, kill more. | |
| "I always send threats. But I want to make threats real." | |
| She sent a picture of St Paul's Cathedral to the officer and wrote: "I would like to do this place for sure. | |
| "I would like bomb and shoot til death... I really would love to destroy that place and the kaffir [enemies of IS] there." | |
| Just over a week later she visited St Paul's and sent videos to her contact, writing: "I will to the bomb under the dome. | |
| "I will also do something in hotel, then church, then kill til I'm dead." | |
| Prosecutors say she gave two bags which she wanted to be fitted with homemade bombs to the female undercover officer. |