A SCOTS jihadi bride is one of four men and women to have been hit with international sanctions in a bid by the Government to stem the flow of home-grown Islamic State recruits.
Aqsa Mahmood, who has said she would rather die in Syria than return to the UK, left her family home in Glasgow in 2013. The former private schoolgirl keeps a blog in which she has published advice for women wanting to travel to join Islamic State and described the Tunisia beach attack which killed 38 people as revenge. 
She has now been added to a UN list along with three others suspected of leading recruitment drives and plotting terror attacks against the UK and elsewhere from strongholds in Syria. The others are Omar Hussain from High Wycombe, Nasser Muthana from Cardiff, and Sally Jones from Chatham, in Kent.
It is the first time the UK has submitted the names of the worst offenders among the around 700 thought to have travelled out to the region to join the Islamist extremists. Approval by a UN committee means the group are subject to a global asset freeze and travel ban, but the move is also designed as a deterrent to dissuade would-be fighters.
A No10 spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that we will do all we can to stop British citizens from going to fight for ISIL and that foreign fighters should face consequences for their actions.
“As well as the domestic measures we have introduced, such as the power to seize passports, these sanctions are a powerful tool – freezing an individual’s assets and imposing a global travel ban on them. It also sends a clear deterrent message to those thinking of going to fight for ISIL. We will continue to consider whether more individuals should be subjected to these sanctions.”Jones travelled to Syria in 2013 with her husband Junaid Hussain who was killed in a US air strike in August. She uses social media to recruit women to join IS.
Mahmood went to Syria to join IS in 2013 and is thought to be a key figure in the al-Khanssaa brigade, a female brigade in Raqqa which was established by IS to enforce Sharia law. She has used social media to recruit and support IS.
Hussain, who is also known as Abu-Said al-Britani, travelled to Syria last year and also uses social media to recruit others to join IS.
Muthana joined IS in Syria in 2013 and has appeared in propaganda and recruitment videos. He has also threatened the UK in social media posts.
It came as David Cameron held talks with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani as part of efforts at the United Nations to break the diplomatic deadlock over Syria. The crisis dominated their 45-minute discussion in New York, where Western allies remain deeply split with Russia and Iran over the future of Bashar Assad as the 
civil-war racked country’s president.
Russian president Vladimir Putin told the UN General Assembly it would be “an enormous mistake” to refuse to work with the regime – which was “valiantly” fighting the so-called Islamic State (IS) on its territory. A UK Government official said the talks with Mr Rouhani had been “good, considered, thoughtful and in a constructive spirit”.