Sally Jones, the Most Dangerous ISIS Operative Alive

Sally Jones | Asharq Al-Awsat
Sally Jones | Asharq Al-Awsat
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Sally Jones, the Most Dangerous ISIS Operative Alive

Sally Jones | Asharq Al-Awsat
Sally Jones | Asharq Al-Awsat

British Sally Jones, nicknamed the White Widow, is still alive after news of her death in Syria in 2017 and still poses a major threat to Britain, Birmingham Live website revealed.

The website said on Sunday that she is still alive and fighting, according to an ISIS Canadian militant who was captured by Syrian Democratic Forces.

Mohammed Ali, who uses the alias Abu Turab, suggested Jones was alive and hiding out in Syria’s north-east.

He has been captured for nearly four months now after being arrested Ras al-Ayn city, at the borders between Syria and Turkey.

Reports said the White Widow died following a US airstrike on the convoy she was traveling with from Raqqa in June.

It was reported at the time that her son was also killed in the attack, possibly due to Jones using him as a human shield.

The British site revealed aspects of Jones’ life as one of the most dangerous wanted in the world after joining ISIS in 2013.

Born Sally-Anne Frances Jones in Greenwich, south-east London, she had a troubled upbringing, with her parents divorcing and her father committing via overdose, Birmingham Live said.

Raised a Catholic, she attended Christian youth groups but failed to find a positive path in life, dropping out of school. She became the singer and lead guitarist in an all-girl rock band called Krunch.

Jones’s interests are also thought to have included conspiracy theories, black magic, and witchcraft, according to posts on online forums attributed to her.

She worked as a perfume saleswoman for a global brand before converting to Islam in May 2013 and leaving for Syria the following month.

Before leaving, Jones, 45 then, met her extremist 20-year-old then husband Hussain Junaid, who was a British internet hacker.

Junaid invited her to join him in Raqqa, which was the terror group’s de-facto capital.

She took with her one of her sons, who was 10 years old at the time.

When she arrived in Syria, she began working with her husband, who was killed in a US drone raid later in 2015, in recruiting foreign fighters through social media to threaten Western interests in Europe.

Jones was said to have been in charge of the female wing of the Anwar al-Awlaki battalion, a unit of foreign fighters set up by Hussain.

Hundreds of British women are thought to have been persuaded to join ISIS by the prolific online recruiter.

Following her husband’s death, she was named the White Widow and expressed her pride in his death, adding that she would not love anyone after him.

According to the information provided, Junaid was an electronic expert and leader of the "cyber-caliphate" wing.

The ISIS widow was feared to have slipped back into the UK with two suspected militants after a reported sighting in Birmingham in August 2015.

The hunt later switched to Glasgow, but there was no further information about her whereabouts afterward.



Japanese Police Arrest Man after Car Ploughs into Schoolchildren

Police officers investigate the scene in Osaka's Nishinari district on May 1, 2025. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT
Police officers investigate the scene in Osaka's Nishinari district on May 1, 2025. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT
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Japanese Police Arrest Man after Car Ploughs into Schoolchildren

Police officers investigate the scene in Osaka's Nishinari district on May 1, 2025. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT
Police officers investigate the scene in Osaka's Nishinari district on May 1, 2025. (Photo by JIJI PRESS / AFP) / Japan OUT

Japanese police arrested a man after they said he ploughed his car deliberately into seven primary school children in the western city of Osaka on Thursday.

The children, who had been on their way home from school, were injured and rushed to hospital but all seven remained conscious.

An Osaka police official, who declined to be identified, said the driver was a 28-year-old man who lives in Tokyo and gave AFP an account of what he said after his arrest.

"I was fed up with everything, so I decided to kill people by ramming the car I was driving into several elementary school children," the official quoted the man as saying.

Police are holding him on suspicion of attempted murder, the official said.

The children are aged seven and eight and police said the most serious injury was a fractured jaw suffered by a seven-year-old girl.

The other six, all boys, appeared to have suffered comparatively milder injuries that included bruises and scratches and they were under examination, police said.

The car was "zigzagging" as it hit the children, with one girl "covered in blood and other kids suffering what appeared to be scratches", a witness told Nippon TV.

The driver was wearing a surgical mask and "looked like he was in shock" after he was dragged out of the car by school teachers, Nippon TV quoted a witness as saying.