Runa Khan: Mother who encouraged her young children to fight jihad jailed for five years

Ms Khan revealed her radical views on Facebook

Runa Khan leaving Kingston Crown Court in July (PA)

An “extremist” mother-of-six children, who took pictures of her toddler son with a toy gun and daydreamed about sending his eight-year-old brother to fight jihad, has been jailed for five years and three months for promoting terrorism.

Runa Khan revealed her radical views on Facebook, calling on fellow Muslim women to urge their male relatives to fight, and posted picture of a suicide vest.

She praised an article, entitled “Raising Mujahid Children”, that gave tips on how to prepare young children for jihad. Judge Peter Birts said the article was essentially “a manual in encouraging women to carry out jihad”.

Khan, 35, repeatedly spoke of her desperation to travel to Syria on WhatsApp messages, and unwittingly passed a route to the country to an undercover police officer. She also appeared to glorify the murder of Lee Rigby.

In a post on Facebook, Khan wrote: “Sisters, if you love your sons, husbands and brothers, prove it by sending them to fight for Allah. Don’t you want them to enter Jannah? Don’t you want them to prepare for you a palace…?”

When arrested, police found a photo of her two-year-old son with a toy rifle and a jihadist book on her phone, as well as images of her and her older children with a sword, Kingston Crown Court heard.

She also wrote on an extremist website about the day when she would send one of her sons off to fight. “I pictured the future while I was zipping up his jacket, in sha Allah I’ll be tying the shahada bandana round his forehead and hand him his rifle and send him out to play the big boys game,” she said.

Khan, from Luton, admitted four charges of disseminating terrorist publications between July and September 2013.

She told BBC Newsnight: “I was posting up my belief.”