A supporter of the banned Islamic State terror group has admitted plotting to blow herself up in a bomb attack on St Paul's Cathedral.
Muslim convert Safiyya Shaikh went on a reconnaissance trip to scope out the London landmark and a hotel.
The 36-year-old, born Michelle Ramsden, was arrested after asking an undercover police officer to supply bombs.
At the Old Bailey, Shaikh, of west London, admitted preparing an act of terrorism and will be sentenced in May.
She was considered such a threat that MI5 made her the highest-level priority for investigation in the weeks before her arrest, according to Whitehall security sources.
It meant she was subject to a level of surveillance reserved for only the most dangerous potential attackers.
Over the two months before her arrest in October 2019, Shaikh built up a relationship with two undercover officers who were posing as a husband and wife extremist team.
She messaged one of them via an encrypted social media app.
‘Bomb under the dome'
“I want to kill a lot,” she told the officer. “I would like to do church… a day like Christmas or Easter good, kill more.
“I always send threats. But I want to make threats real.”
She sent a picture of St Paul's Cathedral to the officer and wrote: “I would like to do this place for sure.
“I would like bomb and shoot 'til death… I really would love to destroy that place and the kaffir there.”
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