Humza Ali, 20, smiled, raised a finger in an ISIS salute, and yelled 'Allahu Akbar!' (god is great) as he was led from the dock

An apprentice bricklayer was jailed for nine years after training to join ISIS at a paintballing session organised by a man linked to the Paris and Brussels attackers.

Humza Ali, 20, from Birmingham, smiled, raised a finger in an ISIS salute, and yelled 'Allahu Akbar!' (god is great) as he was led from the dock.

The judge, Mark Wall QC, said he was a dangerous individual who had 'settled to the idea of dying for the cause in which you believed.'

It can now be disclosed that Ali is the son of a former jihadi, jailed eight years ago for supplying equipment to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Despite his own background, his father, Shahid Ali, reported his son missing when he feared he had run off to join ISIS.

His mother had taken his passport from him when he was 17 but he had managed to get a replacement.

The judge told him: 'You are an intelligent man and you knew that your own father had been involved in funding movements with similar aims to those which you supported and you knew that he had been imprisoned for that.

'You went into what you did with your eyes fully open as to the probable consequences of doing so.'

Ali had 'apparently been integrated into society until his mid teens' the judge said, but he started becoming involved with radicals, including supporters of the preacher Anjem Choudary, at the age of 17.

He went on to befriend Brusthom Ziamani and spoke to him days before the teenager was caught wandering the streets of London with a hammer, a knife and an Islamic flag, looking for a soldier to behead in August 2014.

The pair handed out leaflets in Chamberlain Square in Birmingham city centre together in July 2014, titled 'Education under the Shariah.'

Ali also attended a paintballing session at Delta Force on Cut Throat Lane in Hockley Heath, Solihull with six others on June 14 2014.

Mohammed Ali Ahmed, the man who paid for the session, pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism and was jailed for eight years in December.

Terror training: Humza Ali (top right), Mohammed Ali Ahmed (bottom left), Gabriel Rasmus (front row, second left) and Abdelatif Gaini (front row, second right)

He supplied £3,000 to Mohamed Abrini, the so-called 'Man in the Hat' at the Brussels airport attack, who was also involved in the Paris attacks of November 2015.

A second member of the group, Abdelatif Gaini, succeeded in joining ISIS where he is now fighting alongside another friend.

The prosecution said there was 'no coincidence' that Ali's chosen companions also included Gabriel Rasmus.

Rasmus was caught on April 3, 2015 at Dover in the back of an articulated lorry heading to Syria to join ISIS.

The paintballers posed for a 'promotional photo' in combat gear, holding their weapons, using the occasion to seal their 'common sense of identity,' Anne Whyte QC, prosecuting, told the jury.

'I have no doubt that this was used as training exercise in weapons-handling by you and people who had the same ends in mind as you had,' the judge said.

'It is not a coincidence that a number of people on that trip have since been convicted of terrorist offences and that you and they can be seen from the photographs that were taken on that trip to be making hand gestures in obvious support of ISIS.'

A selfie taken by Ali suggests he also played the violent video game Call of Duty

Ms Whyte said that 'at first blush' it seemed 'an entirely harmless recreation and one enjoyed by many unassuming people.'

But she said the men had used is as a 'bonding act' and a training exercise and added: 'If you step back you will understand that for an inexperienced but committed young man, who intends to leave his Western urban life for war in Middle East, the opportunities for handling anything remotely resembling a weapon are extremely limited.'

'Membership of a gun club might, for example, draw unwanted attention but the occasional paintballing session with friends is ideal, however bizarre that may seem, and at least enables the participant to handle a type of weapon and to take broad aim.'

Ali was stopped from getting to Syria on one occasion when his worried mother confiscated his passport. Attempts to get to Syria by sea via Ireland also failed.

Ali had been the caught in a surveillance operation as early as December 11 2013, when he was bugged in conversation with Alex Nash.

Nash told Ali: 'Some brothers can go with the intention of dying and never coming back. It's just more than a holiday or this and that.'

'All I want to go there is just fight until I die inshallah (God willing),' Ali replied.

Nash, 22, was jailed for five years after trying to travel to Syria with his pregnant wife in November 2014.

Ali tried and failed to go to Syria to fight for ISIS, initially planning to travel with Rasmus, who he met at Koran classes in Birmingham.

In January 2015, Ali took a circuitous route by National Express coach, from Birmingham, through Scotland, by ferry to Northern Ireland and then to Dublin, taking his college work with him.

He then caught a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul but when he got to Turkey, he was refused entry and sent back to Ireland the next day.

After failing to reach Syria, Ali set about radicalising a fellow student on his bricklaying course at South and City College using a chatgroup called 'The Bois' to share beheading videos and calling himself 'Saiful Islam' (Sword of Islam).

He also sent 'threatening and grossly offensive' messages to a Labour councillor called Majid Mahmood with the intention of bullying him into stepping down because he did not believe in democratic elections.

He told the politician: 'You're a dirty swine kaffir (non-believer). Keep far away from Muslim area! You Shaytan [Satan].'

Ali from Ward End, Birmingham, was jailed for eight years for preparing acts of terrorism, with an extended period on license of five years, and told he would serve two thirds.

The gang gave ISIS-style one-finger salutes as they posed next to a tank at the centre

He was given three years concurrently for distributing terrorist publications, along with Ali Akbar Zeb, 20, his fellow student from Washwood Heath who was given 21 months.

Ali was also jailed for two consecutive six-month terms for sending malicious communications, also consecutive to the main sentence.

Zeb had sent Ali three videos about martyrdom including once called 'How Allah rewards the Shuhada (martyrs)' from the Liveleak website, which featured a fighter being shot dead and said 'those who die in battle should be celebrated and other brothers should be excited to join them.'

Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale of West Midlands Counter-Terrorism Unit said a 'significant amount of work' from both MI5 and the police had gone into 'understanding the threat and gathering evidence' about Ali and the group around him.

'This was a substantial investigation even by our standards,' he added.

Humza Ali's father was linked to a man who was plotting to kidnap and behead a British soldier in Birmingham in 2007.

Shahid Ali, then 34, pleaded guilty to sending equipment to insurgents fighting British troops on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Ali Akbar Zeb, 20, a fellow student from Washwood Heath, was given 21 months

Parviz Khan, described as a 'fanatical extremist,' came back from Pakistan with 'shopping lists' of items needed.

He was said to have 'masterminded' the operation from his home in Foxton Road, Birmingham, sourcing items to be used against British, American and Pakistani forces.

The house had been bugged as he spoke to the other men about supplying equipment and sending over cargo to assist those fighting coalition forces.

Tens of thousands of pounds were collected from people duped into thinking they were helping earthquake victims.

The money was then used to buy equipment items from the Argos catalogue and cut-price supermarkets such as Netto and Lidl.

The equipment included balaclavas, thermal clothing and camping gear.

There were also night-vision binoculars, mobile phones and computer software.

Ali and the other men helped Khan send four shipments containing 86 boxes between April 2006 and February 2007.

They were arrested in October 2008 following a 'long and painstaking investigation' by the West Midlands Counter- Terrorism Unit.

Ali was jailed in March 2009 for two years and four months, alongside Shabir Mohammed, 30, who was given the same sentence and Mohammed Nadim, 29, who was jailed for three years.

A fourth man, Abdul Raheem, 32, pleaded guilty to failing to disclose information about terrorism and was jailed for a year.

Four other men - Zahoor Iqbal, a school truancy officer, Mohammed Irfan and Hamid Elasmer - were also jailed for helping in the scheme.

Duncan Atkinson, prosecuting, told the court: 'The items are not weapons which are all too easily obtained in the lawless tribal areas.

'They are sending sophisticated electronic equipment readily available in Western shops.'

Shahid Ali was arrested in a dawn raid when Humza was 12 and he later found that he was 'giving money and it ended up in the wrong hands,' he said.

Shahid spent a year and a half in jail, visited twice a month by his children, and several more months in a bail hostel.

But during his trial, Humza Ali admitted that his father had tried to stop him going on 'holiday,' telling him: 'You aint going nowhere, you're staying here.'

His father sat alone in court through large parts of his Humza's trial but refused to co-operate with police after his initial call.

A pre-sentence report found that Ali showed 'no signs of abandoning the beliefs' he had adopted and was therefore dangerous.

He was said to have a 'lack of remorse for his actions' and was 'likely to behave in a similar way in the future.'

Although he was shocked he was facing a jail sentence, he still had 'them and us thinking', showing an 'emotional response' for Muslim victims of violence but not for non-believers.

A defence report, by an expert in de-radicalisation found he had 'immature and highly reactionary attitudes' and was keen to support the actions of Muslims but had a lack of guidance.

'He lacks cognitive and high-level thinking to make a choice,' the report added.

Paul Hynes QC, defending Ali, said he was a 'youthful ideologue who has been seduced and subject to influence that the criminal law does not allow.

'He is a man just over the cusp of adulthood but a man who can be subject to contrary influences.

'Notwithstanding his attempts to get close to Mr Rasmus, Gaini, Ahmed and Ziamani, it never went anywhere,' Mr Hynes said. 'The people he sought to attach himself to didn't think he was up to it and that's why he's not in Syria now. He was not made of the right stuff.'

The judge, Mark Wall QC, said Ali seemed to be prepared to 'take almost anything on behalf of ISIS and anything contrary was dismissed out of hand.'

Zeb told a probation officer preparing a pre-sentence report: 'I've done things that are wrong and I think I should go to prison. I don't want to, but I believe in justice. I think prison will make me a bit more ill in the head. I am worried it will mess me up, I am scared of it, but that's normal. If I go to prison, I won't blame anyone.'

He had a 'difficult and fractured upbringing,' Naeem Mian QC, for Zeb, said, and that resulted in a 'sense of alienation, and a desperate sense of wanting to fit in.'