Advertisment

ISIS' White Widow Reportedly Killed by US Drone

author-image
Deepshikha Chakravarti
New Update
UN gender based violence, Support survivors

ISIS's  “White Widow” is believed to be dead. Dubbed as White Widow, Sally Jones was a British jihadi who recruited online for the Islamic State group. She has been killed in Syria by an US drone along with her 12-year-old son, The Sun newspaper reported.

Advertisment

Although, it is being said that her son’s presence with her was not known at the time of the strike and he was not an intended target, many say it is an acceptable "collateral damage".

The British Press nicknamed her the “White Widow” after her jihadi husband, Junaid Hussain, was shot down in 2015.

 The Sun further reported according to a British intelligence source, who had been briefed by U.S. counterparts, Jones and her son had been killed in June close to Syria's border with Iraq, as she was attempting to flee from Raqqa.

A punk musician, from Southern England turned jihadist and was Britain’s most wanted women for many years. Jones reportedly fled to Syria along with her boy in November 2013. They joined her boyfriend Junaid Hussain, an Islamist computer hacker. They had met online. The couple later married in Raqqa. Hussain was from Birmingham and was assassinated in August 2015 by a targeted US drone strike in Raqqa.

Jones was a prolific online recruiter for the movement. Further, it is believed, she had attracted dozens of female recruits using social media. She was linked to 20 Twitter accounts which she used to post messages of support of ISIS.

A defence source said the strike had been carried out by the CIA. They run their own fleet of Predator drones armed with Hellfire missiles.

Their deaths have not been officially confirmed due to the inability to collect evidence from the ground. "I do not have any information that would substantiate that report but that could change and we are looking into this" Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Guardian.

There has been no official confirmation from the UK government so far. The British Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman did not comment on the report, neither did the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.

Advertisment

However, Fallon told reporters in London, “If you are a British national in Iraq or Syria, and if you have chosen to fight for Daesh, an illegal organization that is preparing and inspiring terror attacks on our streets, then you’ve made yourself a legitimate target”. “And you run the risk every hour of every day of being on the wrong end of an RAF or a United States missile,” he added.

Pic Credit:  mic.com

Also read: 4 Women Attacked With Acid In Paris

Syria IS Islamic state Sally Jones US drone White Widow
Advertisment