[Chatter]
The chatter never stops,
the jihadi chat rooms, the Islamic State Twitter pages never close.
But sometimes you come across something that
shocks and that makes you think.
[Keyboard typing]
Over the past four months,
Sky News has been in contact with senior jihadists in Syria.
We created fictional characters, committed to jihad,
and appointed a freelance investigative journalist to run those characters.
Very soon, our posts attracted the attention
of two major players in Islamic State's so-called cyber caliphate.
Junaid Hussain is a 21-year-old hacker turned jihadist from Birmingham
who runs the IS information and recruitment arm from Syria.
Known as Abu Hussain, he has been identified by the United States Secret Service
as a top five target for elimination by drone strike.
His wife, Sally Jones, a former punk from Chatham,
is now also in Syria, working alongside Junaid
but dealing with the female IS-supporting jihadists.
[Road noise]
From the start, it became clear that Islamic State want their recruits to attack in the UK.
We can reveal that this is an entirely new tactic by Islamic State,
who originally called for volunteers to join them. No more.
Sending us details - specially-compiled guidebooks -
they urged our characters to form gangs.
To create a British Islamic State movement
over a long period of time.
The books contain guidance on everything -
from getting money to building weapons.
This new strategy is a major departure.
They focus now on so-called lone wolf killers.
"They're saying the best way to get the kufars, which are the non-believers,
"is hitting them in their own countries.
"Hitting them hard."
Communicating via encrypted messaging sites,
a second conversation started with our second character - a girl.
Very quickly, Sally Jones came straight to the point.
"She messaged me, saying 'greetings', and then I replied.
"And then she asked straight away, 'What do you want to do?'
"'Why are you here?' She was asking why I was messaging her,
"and I told her I got her account from Abu Hussain.
"She said, 'Yes, that's my husband. So, do you want to do something over there?'
"She was straight to point and I said yeah,
"'cos Hussein had released some tweets
"about how there needed to be an attack in England
"because it had been long.
"So I said those tweets resonated with me,
"and she said, 'Very good. So, do you want to make a bomb
"or do you want to just cut some heads off, some kuffs' heads off?'
"I said a bomb would be easiest.
"And from there, step-by-step, she said, 'First what I'm going to do is send you a manual.'"
Assuring us she would help guide us through the making of a bomb.
Sally Jones told us the materials we would need,
asking us to get them and to show her a receipt with a clear date.
She's checking to see if we were authentic.
Sensing our character's worries, Sally Jones took an unusual step to try and reassure us.
She revealed she had another potential bomb-maker,
and two others who, she said, had so far failed to attack.
"They had made the bomb, all set and ready to go,
"but on the day they were missing.
"But then she mentioned a girl in Glasgow and she said she was very good
"and she is going to do the attack.
"What we don't know is where she's doing the attack or when she's doing the attack."
Not losing momentum, Sally Jones sent us the details of the intended target.
August the 15th at the VJ commemorations,
the Queen and the Royal Family in Horse Guards Parade.
With one or even three potential real bombers at large,
we contacted the Met's anti-terror branch and informed them.
This information was later passed to a Sunday newspaper.
The police deny involvement in that,
rather encouraging us to continue our investigation.
We wanted more information on potential attacks in the UK,
so I took the tried and tested jihadi route through Istanbul
to the Turkish-Arabic city of Urfa,
near the Syrian border.
Our Islamic State contacts confirmed the new policy
for British and European jihadists to stay in their countries,
but I was told that there were specific developments
and needed to meet at a secret location -
information I would only be given on arrival.
"Well, the secret services are all over Urfa
"and our contacts have been followed every time we've tried to get to a meeting
"with a former Islamic State operative.
"He's in a safe house
"and has said that what we need to do is to come to this souk
"and try and disappear in the crowd,
"so I'm following these guys - they know where the location is."
Having alluded the authorities, I was introduced to this man.
In Islamic State, he was part of the organisation's internal security.
They've been known as the equivalent of the Gestapo.
Hardcore, blood-thirsty and dangerous.
They're feared and kill at will.
His job was to oversee VIP foreign jihadists,
as they underwent training for specific missions outside Syria and Iraq.
He claimed four or five of them were English.
More importantly, he says they completed training
and have returned to Britain to carry out an attack.
"In that training, what are they being trained to do?
"What things - is it making bombs? Is it shooting? Is it beheading?
"I mean, what are they taught?"
Already stretched, British security services cannot afford to ignore the possibility
that seven bombers could be operating in the UK that we know of.
Whether they're real or not is impossible to know.
But Sally Jones believes there is an eighth - our character.
Until today, our communications have continued.
Her final message clear and cold-blooded.
Do it - that's all.
Stuart Ramsay, Sky News.