*LONDON: A London teenager was found guilty Monday of preparing an attackon the British Museum as part of the country’s first all-female cell linkedto the Islamic State group, police and prosecutors said.*
Safaa Boular, 18, plotted the grenade and gun attack in her home town afterthe authorities intervened to stop her travelling to Syria to marry an ISfighter she had met online.
She is the youngest female to be charged with planning an IS attack inBritain.
Boular was only 16 when she made contact with British-born IS fighterNaweed Hussain, 32, discussing marriage and how they would don his-and-herssuicide belts.
But her hopes of joining him were dashed when she was stopped at theairport in August 2016 following a family trip to Morocco, and her passportwas confiscated.
Instead Boular decided to plan an attack in Britain, detailing it in codedlanguage — grenades were “pineapples” — to online contacts who were in factundercover agents.
Hussain was later killed in a drone strike.
When Boular was charged with preparing terrorist acts in April 2017, shepassed the baton to her sister Rizlaine, 22, and their mother Mina Dich,44, who hatched their own plan.
The trio were taped talking about an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea party,which the prosecution argued was code for an attack.
Rizlaine and her mother were arrested after being tracked by policevisiting potential sites around Westminster and buying knives.
They pleaded guilty to terror offences, along with a fourth woman,Rizlaine’s friend Khawla Barghouthi, 21, who later admitted failing toalert the authorities.
Safaa Boular denied the plot but was found guilty on Monday after a trial.
Dean Haydon, Britain’s top counter-terror police officer, said the plot“involved a family with murderous intent, the first all-female terroristplot in the UK connected to Daesh (IS)”.
He added: “All three women were filled with hate and toxic ideology andwere determined to carry out a terrorist attack.
“Had they been successful, it could well have resulted in people beingkilled or seriously injured.”
Rizlaine, her mother and their friend will be sentenced on June 15,although a date has not yet been set for Safaa Boular’s sentencing.