Chilling picture shows Brit who tried to join ISIS on ‘training exercise’ with three other would-be terrorists at Birmingham paintballing centre
THE group went on "bonding" sessions to learn how to fight
THIS chilling picture shows four Brit men with links to ISIS learning to shoot weapons - at a Birmingham paintball range.
The men chose the activity, more suited to a stag do than a Jihadi, because shooting at a "gun club might draw unwanted attention".
A court convicted Humza Ali after hearing he had trained for battle at the Birmingham based centre, in Cut Throat Lane.
The apprentice bricklayer posed for "promotional" photos with Mohammed Ali Ahmed, Gabriel Rasmus and Abdelatif Gaini, also linked to the terror group, at a paintballing centre in Solihull months before border staff in Turkey sent him back to Britain.
The pictures show the 20-year-old man with other Birmingham men making the single-fingered salute of the so-called Islamic State.
Ali was convicted after a three-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court which heard he wanted to "fight until I die" in Syria and was covertly recorded telling a fifth IS sympathiser that his mother had confiscated his passport.
Ahmed, who is seen smiling on the "bonding" session, was jailed earlier this week for his part in handing £3,000 to Brussels "man in the hat" bombing suspect Mohamed Abrini.
The trial also heard that pictures recovered from Ali's phone showed him with would-be jihadist Rasmus, posing beside a tank at Delta Force paintballing in Cut Throat Lane, Hockley Heath, in June 2014.
Gaini, who is thought to be in Syria, is seen crouching near a military vehicle in one of the pictures.
Ali - a student at Birmingham's South and City College who lived with his parents - told jurors he had no intention of travelling to Syria when he made his way by sea and air routes to Istanbul via Ireland in January 2015.
But jurors convicted Ali of attempting to travel for terrorist purposes and disseminating numerous video messages to other men showing beheadings and atrocities carried out by IS.
Ali was also found guilty of sending malicious communications after directing "abusive" anti-democracy messages at a local councillor.
He will be sentenced in January.
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During Ali's trial, prosecutor Anne Whyte QC said the paintballing photos were proof that Ali was preparing for terrorist acts.
She said: "If you step back you will understand that for an inexperienced but committed young man like Humza Ali, who intends to leave his Western urban life for war in the Middle East, the opportunities for handling anything remotely resembling a type of firearm are extremely limited.
"Membership, for example, of a gun club might draw unwanted attention, but the occasional paintballing session with friends is ideal, however bizarre that may seem, and at least enables the participant to handle a type of weapon and to take broad aim.
"Should you be in any doubt about the serious intent behind this activity in June 2014, you will be able to consider evidence which we say demonstrates that this was in fact a sort of training exercise, and of itself an act of preparation.
"During it, the participants posed for photographs in quasi-combat gear, holding their paint-filled weapons, including Ali.
"They were able to use the occasion to take a sort of promotional photo sealing their common sense of identity.
"It was a bonding act of preparation between men of like mind and like intent. They were doing what passed, in their limited circumstances, for training.
"Three including Ali have been thwarted in their plans to get to Syria."
Ahmed paid for the paintballing exercise, added Ms Whyte, and told jurors that he had already pleaded guilty to an offence under the Terrorism Act.
Ahmed, 27, was jailed for eight years on Monday at London's Kingston Crown Court.
Contempt of Court Act restrictions in the case of Ahmed had prevented reporting of his presence at the paintballing centre and references to the fact that 41-year-old Gaini travelled to Syria.
Rasmus, 29, was jailed for four years at the Old Bailey last month after being arrested in April last year at Dover while en route to Syria to engage in terrorism.
Earlier this year it was revealed the first British woman convicted of joining ISIS received a £132,000 handout of taxpayers’ cash to help fight her case in court.
And a hospital boss and his wife were jailed for sending cash to a nephew fighting for IS.
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