Woman shot during Willesden Green police raid is charged with preparing terrorist act

Rizlaine Boular was shot and arrested by armed police following the raid in north London

Police shot the woman during the raid in north London last week (Jakub Krupa)

Three women including one who was shot during a police raid in north London have been charged with preparing a terrorist act and conspiracy to murder.

Rizlaine Boular, 21, of central London, Khawla Barghouthi, 20, of north-west London, and Mina Dich, 43, of south-west London, were arrested last month and charged on Wednesday, Scotland Yard said.

Boular was shot by armed police during a raid at a property in Harlesden Road, north London, on April 27 and was arrested when she was discharged from hospital on April 30.

Barghouthi was arrested in Harlesden Road on April 27 and Boular's mother, Dich, was arrested on the same day in Kent.

They are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday morning.

Several other people arrested in the same operation, including women ages 18 and 19 and a 16-year-old boy, have been released without charges.

Police say they disrupted an active terror plot when they made the arrests.

British officials have set the threat level from international terrorism at "severe," indicating an attack is highly likely.

In an unrelated case that also unfolded on April 27, a London man was arrested near Parliament carrying several knives. Khalid Mohammed Omar Ali, 27, has been charged with preparing terrorist acts this year and with making or having explosives in Afghanistan in 2012.

On March 22, an attacker drove an SUV into pedestrians on London's Westminster Bridge, killing four, before fatally stabbing a police officer inside Parliament's gates. He was shot dead by police.

Britain has seen a series of trials over foiled terrorism plots since suicide bombers killed 52 London commuters on three subway trains and a bus in 2005.

The latest alleged plot is unusual in that those charged are all women, and include a mother and daughter.

Additional reporting by agencies