Lone wolf Britons ready to strike UK targets for Islamic State, reports claim

Islamic State is now focused on urging British would-be recruits to carry out “lone wolf” attacks in the UK instead of travelling to fight in Syria, it is being claimed. Fictional characters created online for a Sky News investigation by an undercover freelance journalist were sent terror guidebooks by senior jihadists in Syria - including advice on raising funds and making weapons. And we were told IS already has a number of potential bombers in the UK, possibly as many as four - some of whom have been trained in Syria and are ready to attack. One jihadist told us that this Saturday’s VJ commemorations involving the Queen and the Royal Family were a target.

Yes, yes, yes everything, all of this - using the Kalashnikov, the pistol, the bomb, grenades and other things.

An unidentified IS trainer, speaking to Sky News

The online posts by our characters over the past four months attracted the attention of two major players in Islamic State’s so-called cyber caliphate. One of them is Junaid Hussain, a 21-year-old hacker-turned-jihadist from Birmingham, who runs the IS information and recruitment arm from Syria. His wife, Sally Jones, a former punk from Chatham, Kent, is also in Syria working alongside Hussain in Raqqa but dealing with female IS-supporting jihadists. Jones quickly asked our character what she wanted to do in the UK - to cut a head off or blow up a bomb.

She also told our character that two other girls had been recruited but had failed to carry out a promised attack.

Sky News reporter Stuart Ramsay

Europe VJ terror