St Paul's Cathedral bomb plot

In 2019, Safiyya Amira Shaikh, a supporter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), plotted to suicide bomb St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, United Kingdom.[1][2]

Shaikh was born Michelle Ramsden in 1983 and has a daughter.[1][2][3] She is from a very dysfunctional family and became a drug addict.[1] She converted to Islam in 2007 and became estranged from her family.[1][2][3] She became radicalised during the mid-2010s into supporting ISIL and was in online contact with other Islamists.[1] She was investigated for her online extremism by the police, who had online conversations with her.[1][2] She met an undercover police officer in west London in September 2019 and was arrested the following month.[1][2] In February 2020 at the Old Bailey, Shaikh pleaded guilty to preparing an act of terrorism, which she intended to carry out at Easter 2020, using an explosive belt.[1][2] On 3 July 2020, Shaikh, who lived in Hayes, west London, wore a black hijab as she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years.[1][3]

Shaikh also planned to plant a bomb at a Central London hotel and planned a suicide bombing on London Underground.[4]