A terrorist
Researchers have identified that a surprisingly large number of engineers make up the ranks of several terrorist organisations in the Muslim world iStock

Sally Jones, the British jihadist mother-of-two from Kent, who left Britain to join the Islamic State (Isis) in Syria, has hinted at blowing herself up in a bid to become the first female suicide bomber for the terror group. She made the claim on social media after posting a eulogy for a Chechen woman, who killed herself along with 27 Russian special forces soldiers in 2000.

"I know what I'm doing. Paradise has a price and I hope this will be the price for Paradise," she said at the end of the post. Raffaello Pantucci, director of worldwide security studies at the Royal United Services Institute think tank said: "If she did do something, she would have to make it very symbolic or very big."

It is believed that IS has been pressuring Jones, the widow of Junaid Hussain, 21, to remarry after he was killed in a US-led drone strike in Raqqa, Syria in August.

However, she has reportedly talked about becoming a "black widow", a term used for a group of Chechen Muslim women whose husbands were killed by the Russian forces in Chechnya. If she does carry out her threat, she may become one of the first widely known female suicide bombers of Western origin.

Jones and Hussain, who were known as "Mr and Mrs Terror", left the UK for Syria in 2013 to fight for IS, but she was later reportedly seen in Birmingham just days before her husband was killed. At present she is based in Raqqa – a stronghold of IS in Syria.

After her husband was killed in the air strikes in August, the mother-of-two reportedly used a Twitter account to post: "I'm gonna come back & expose some more of your military America & I'm gonna prove to you how social media will be your downfall." The Twitter account, with a profile badge showing a masked figure holding an American flag was later taken down.

In the past she has released the home address, identity and other personal details of the drone operator who killed American-Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki and one of the Navy Seals who killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Jones, who fled Kent with her 10-year-old son in 2013, is known to be a social media specialist who uses the web to spread IS propaganda and brainwash vulnerable new recruits. Although she has been banned on Twitter, she reappears occasionally by tweaking her IDs.

These traits have possibly been picked up from her late husband Hussain, who was reported to be number three on America's target list due to his hacking skills and his ability to sign up foreign fighters. He was jailed in 2012 for stealing personal information from Tony Blair and publishing it online. He later escaped after he was granted bail and fled to Syria.

In the last two years, many women and girls from the UK to have fled to Syria, including a Glasgow public schoolgirl Aqsa Mahmood; three schoolgirls from East London, Amira Abase, Kadiza Sultana and Shamima Begum; and three Bradford sisters who took their nine children along with them.