A married couple from Birmingham who practised carrying out Islamic State-inspired knife attacks on a dummy in their home have been jailed for preparing acts of terrorism.



Ummar Mirza, 21, was sentenced at Woolwich crown court to 16 years in prison in London on Wednesday for preparing acts of terrorism in the UK.Madihah Taheer, 22, was jailed for 10 years after purchasing a combat knife for her husband.

The pair had long discussed carrying out an attack, exchanging messages before they were married in September 2015 in which Taheer wrote: “Can we get married already ffs. I want you to kill ppl for me. I have a list.”



Mirza replied: “The day of the nikkah [marriage] I’ll kill em all. Give me the list. The only thing that stops me is we are not married. I will defo ... I’m not joking.”

Taheer, who has recently become a mother, was convicted of preparing an act of terror in October this year, while her husband pleaded guilty to the charge at an earlier hearing.



When police raided the couple’s home in Birmingham, they found a life-like training dummy with slash marks across its forehead, throat and abdomen.

Prior to his arrest, Mirza had carried out a number of internet searches on the best knife to buy, how to commit the “perfect murder”, and how to kill someone with a knife.

After acquiring a combat knife, purchased by his wife, Mirza researched targets including Jewish areas in London and Birmingham, and barracks and Territorial Army bases in Birmingham.

Two days before Mirza was arrested he had also been searching reports about a Birmingham flat being linked to the Westminster terror attack, and on the Westminster attacker Khalid Masood.



Messages between the couple produced in court showed them discussing the purchase of a training dummy, with Mirza preferring a neoprene model over a plastic one.



One message from him to Taheer said: “I know the difference in feeling. [The] same way I like hitting you. It is fun. It feels nice to hit, so to feel flesh contort under the force.”



Sentencing Mirza, Judge Christopher Kinch QC said he had shown “inexorable progress” towards a lone-wolf attack, adding the 21-year-old had “moved from speculative ideas to sourcing equipment, to training and searching for possible targets”.

“The harm which might have been caused is undoubtedly high,” Kinch said. “I am satisfied having regard to all the material I have read that you pose a significant risk of serious harm being caused to members of the public from the commission of further specified offences.”

Speaking about Taheer’s case, Kinch described it as a “personal tragedy” because the October trial came when her first child was just five months old.

During the trial, the Crown Prosecution Service had argued the conversations between the couple showed that Taheer was a “willing accomplice” who knew what Mirza wanted to use the knife for, illustrating “a shared belief in violent pro-jihad, Islamic State extremism”.

Also sentenced on Wednesday was Zainub Mirza, Mirza’s sister, who shared Isis propaganda with the couple on social media.



The 24-year-old was sentenced to 30 months in prison, having already pleaded guilty to five counts of disseminating terrorist publications.

The court heard that Mirza’s sister sent him videos relating to extremism, including some showing Isis fighters beheading hostages.

In one message, she said to her brother: “May Allah give us the ability to raise our children to fight for Allah.”

Speaking after the conviction of Taheer in October, Det Ch Supt Matt Ward, the head of West Midlands counter-terrorism unit, said: “Earlier this year we received information that they were planning to carry out a terrorist act in the UK.

“We were able to establish that they were in advanced stages of preparation. We think that they had radical extreme views for some time – back to 2015. This year they have accelerated that extremism. They had purchased a training knife to carry out a practice of the attack.

“They then bought a large hunting knife that you conceal in clothing in order to carry out an attack. We had two guilty pleas and a guilty verdict because they were sharing extremely vile and disturbing extremist material.



“We are confident that, had we not intervened when we did, they would have carried out an attack.”