- Samata Ullah was arrested by anti-terror police at his home in Cardiff last year
- Court hears he had huge number of extremist files on computer equipment
- He stored some of the data of USB sticks which were disguised as cufflinks
- The 34-year-old has admitted five terrorism offences and faces jail
Samata Ullah has admitted membership of ISIS, being involved in terrorist training, and preparation of terrorist acts
An extremist who stored his secrets on USB sticks disguised as cufflinks is facing jail after admitting being an ISIS terrorist.
Samata Ullah, from Cardiff, admitted membership of ISIS and confessed to being involved in terrorist training and preparation of terrorist acts.
Then 34-year-old was a key member of a group calling itself the 'Cyber Caliphate Army' and gave other members of ISIS advice on how to communicate using sophisticated encryption techniques.
When his home was raided last October, Ullah was found with 30 metal cufflinks from a batch he had bought on a Chinese website, using the name Cardiff Trader.
One of them was loaded with an open-source computer operating system known as Linux, which is popular with computer programmers.
Police also discovered that Ullah had a PDF version of a 500-page book titled 'Guided Missile Fundamentals' and another called 'Advances in Missile Guidance, Control, and Estimation.'
Ullah, a British national of Bangladeshi origin, had recently resigned from his job as an insurance worker.
He had also been making instructional videos in which he wore gloves and used a voice modification system to hide his Welsh accent.
At an Old Bailey hearing, Ullah pleaded guilty to five terror offences including possession of an article for terrorist purposes on or before September 22 last year.
It can be disclosed that Samata Ullah, 34, from Cardiff, South Wales, was the subject of an international manhunt by British and American security services.
Ullah had a PDF version of a 500-page book titled 'Guided Missile Fundamentals' and another called 'Advances in Missile Guidance, Control, and Estimation.'
The first was a manual used by the US to train rocket engineers until the 1970s and the second explained the mathematical algorithms behind missile guidance systems used to tack and intercept a moving target.
In one message, Ullah wrote: 'Ask the brothers in Turkey and Dawlah [Islamic State] whether the book would be useful for them. I have bought a copy and I want to scan all 500 pages and send it to them so that they can start learning the basics of rocket design.
'It can also be translated into Arabic to form the basis of our future weapons programs.'
In another message, he wrote: 'We should also [try] recruiting people from Turkish and Pakistani defence companies as Turkey and Pakistan already have the technology needed to destory or jam drones and planes - but that takes stealth as you don't want to approach them saying, 'hi, we are ISIS, do you want to work for us?''
After today's court hearing, Scotland Yard's anti-terror Commander Dean Haydon said: 'Just because Ullah's activity was in the virtual world we never underestimated how dangerous his activity was.
'He sat in his bedroom in Wales and created online content with the sole intention of aiding people who wanted to actively support ISIS and avoid getting caught by the authorities.
'This is just the sort of information that may have helped people involved in planning devastating, low technical level, attacks on crowded places as we have seen in other cities across the world.
'This conviction is a success, but we need to keep succeeding, which makes it important that we all remain vigilant and people act at the earliest opportunity by calling us confidentially if they are concerned about any suspicious activity.'
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