Attractive jihadi fighters can be “eye candy” to lure British Muslim girls, a former female extremist has said.

The former extremist said she was taught to see Britain as a “kuffar (non-Islam) nation” that had killed many Muslims and was “our enemy”, BBC reported on Tuesday.

“As a teenager, I wanted to get my piece of eye candy and I’d take a good look, and all the YouTube videos, for some reason, they (the militants) were all really, really attractive,” the former extremist said.

She in her early 20s now said that she was first contacted by extremists when she was a student aged 16 or 17.

She said a man had sent her a Facebook message saying she was “very attractive” and telling her: “Now’s the time to cover that beauty because you’re so precious.”

She said the message was “bordering on harassment” but it was the “best way I could have been targeted” because it played on her religious beliefs and told her she would “end up in hell” if she did not obey.

“It was like, get with him before he dies. And then when he dies as a martyr you’ll join him in heaven.”

She was radicalised before the rise of Islamic State (IS), which has taken control of parts of Iraq and Syria, and was attracted by Al Qaeda and al-Shabab.

She said she was told to view British women as “disgusting” and “practically like men”. But she eventually rejected these ideas.

She said the two main things which drove her away from the ideology was that it did “no justice to women” and it said followers “have to go and kill someone that’s non-Muslim”.

She said her old associates would praise Mohammed Emwazi – known as “Jihadi John” – the British is militant who has apparently featured in videos showing the beheading of several Western hostages.

“They’d definitely consider him a role model,” she said. “He is someone they would be really proud of.”