British 'White Widow' Sally Jones 'killed' by US drone strike in Syria 'with 12-year-old son'

British 'White Widow' Sally Jones 'killed' by US drone strike in Syria 'with 12-year-old son'
A British recruiter for the Islamic State group known as the "White Widow" has reportedly been killed by US drone strike.
2 min read
12 October, 2017
Reports of extremists being killing in drone strikes are difficult to confirm [Twitter]
A British recruiter for the Islamic State group known as the "White Widow" has reportedly been killed by a US drone strike, which may have also killed her 12-year-old son.

Sally Jones was killed in June as she attempted to flee IS' de facto Syrian capital Raqqa to the border region with Iraq.

An unnamed British official told The Sun that authorities in Britain and the US have failed to announce the strike because her son JoJo may have also been killed.

Defence sources told Sky News that the strike was successful but have questioned some of the details reported.

"The UK and US military has been working closely together on a number of high-profile targets in recent months and Jones is believed to have been on that list," Sky's defence correspondent said.

Jones, 48, a former rock musician dubbed the "Punk Jihadi" and the "White Widow" by British tabloids, has been accused of recruiting women online after travelling to Syria with her young son in 2013.

Her son has appeared in an IS propaganda video executing a prisoner.

Jones is thought to have married British computer hacker-turned extremist Junaid Hussain, who also travelled to Syria to join IS and died in a US airstrike near Raqqa in 2015.

On Thursday, the spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting IS said he could not confirm Jones' death as a result of a drone strike.

Reports of extremists being killing in drone strikes are difficult to confirm with many cases of supposedly killed people reappearing after their deaths are reported.

Russia said in June its jets had possibly killed IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a bombing raid near Raqqa, and it said in July it was struggling to confirm if he was dead or alive.

But earlier this month, IS released an audio recording of what it said was its leader Baghdadi.

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