Five Britons were found guilty on Monday of plotting to carry out al-Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain, potentially killing hundreds at targets ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre.
The gang planned to use 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make explosives to be used in bombings in revenge for Britain’s support for the United States in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks, prosecutors said.
Court papers, which could only be detailed after the trial, showed police observing the gang had established links between them and two of the four British Islamists who later carried out the London suicide bombings in July 2005, killing 52 people.
Spies had seen Mohammed Sidique Khan, the suspected ringleader of the July 7 bombings, and accomplice Shehzad Tanweer with the men in the days leading up to their arrest.
Counter-terrorism experts said the gang could have produced a ”formidable weapon” more powerful than some of the devices used in recent devastating attacks, such as last year’s Mumbai train bombings that killed more than 200 people.
”It was the first time since 9/11 that British people were attempting to commit mass murder in the UK,” said one senior detective, speaking on condition of anonymity.
”The only sensible conclusion is that al-Qaeda does sit behind it,” he told reporters.
Prosecutors said the men only needed to decide on a target when they were arrested in 2004 before carrying out what would have been the first home-grown attack by Islamic militants.
Al-Qaeda ‘behind’ plot
After the longest-ever terrorism-related trial in British history, the men — Omar Khyam, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Waheed Mahmood and Salahuddin Amin — were found guilty of plotting to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.
Shujah Mahmood and another man, Nabeel Hussain, were cleared of the charges.
British police also said the scale of their operation, codenamed ”Crevice” was, at the time, the largest anti-terrorist action they had carried out.
”The amount of surveillance, the resources dedicated to this was unprecedented. We were not going to suffer an attack from these people or any associates of theirs,” the British detective said.
The conspiracy, dubbed the ”British Bomb Plot” by United States officials, was said by prosecutors to be truly international.
Training was carried out at camps in Pakistan; technical help with detonators was provided by Canadian Momin Khawaja.
The chief prosecution witness was US militant turned informant Mohammed Babar, a self-confessed al-Qaeda supporter who set up the camps but testified against his co-conspirators.
He agreed to give evidence as part of a plea bargain negotiated in 2004 after he admitted a number of terrorism offences in New York.
Babar said he had met many of the men in Pakistan. They had gone there with the intention of heading to Afghanistan to fight US-led forces but later decided to carry out attacks back in Britain instead.
Two of the suspects were part of a cell receiving explosives training and had taken orders from al-Qaeda’s third-in-command, a man identified as Abdul Hadi, Babar told the court.
A third also admitted he had links to a senior figure in Osama bin Laden’s organisation. — Reuters