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.



Frontex: Irregular Migrant Crossings Into EU Drop 20% in 2025

11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa
11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa
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Frontex: Irregular Migrant Crossings Into EU Drop 20% in 2025

11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa
11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa

The number of irregular migrant crossings into the European Union dropped by 20 percent in the first five months of the year, the EU's border agency said Wednesday.

Warsaw-based Frontex said that a total of 63,700 crossings were detected this year, adding that the main nationalities were Afghan, Bangladeshi and Malian.

The biggest decreases in irregular crossings were seen in the Western Balkans (minus 56 percent), the western African route (minus 35 percent) and the eastern Mediterranean (minus 30 percent).

There was also a seven percent decrease in migrant crossings from Belarus into Poland and the Baltics to 5,062 crossings, Frontex said.

But it pointed to a slight increase of seven percent in the number of migrants crossing the central Mediterranean towards Italy.

Frontex also said that the number of migrants attempting to cross into Britain via the Channel increased by 17 percent to 25,540 compared to the first five months of 2024.

"Smuggling networks operating in the area are adapting, using simultaneous departures to increase the number of successful crossings," AFP quoted it as saying.

Irregular migration has become a political flashpoint across Europe, as seen most recently in the Polish presidential election on June 1 which was won by a nationalist promising to crack down on immigration.

Irregular border crossings detected into the European Union were down 38 percent to 239,000 last year after an almost 10-year peak in 2023, according to EU border agency Frontex.

But, led by hawks including Italy and Denmark, EU leaders called in October for urgent new legislation to increase and speed up returns and for the commission to assess "innovative" ways to counter irregular migration.