Three Islamists from Birmingham have been found guilty by a Court of leading a large terrorist bomb plot which also targeted Jews in Britain.
Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, intended to mount eight suicide bombings and poison attacks as Britain prepared to hold the Olympics last July, planning among others a gun attack against a synagogue.
Police believe it was the most significant terror plot to be uncovered since the 2006 conspiracy to blow up transatlantic airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks.
Khalid even boasted that the outrage was “another 9/11” as “revenge for everything”.
During their trial at Woolwich Crown Court, the jury heard how the men - who referred to themselves as the Four Lions from the spoof comedy - plotted a number of terrorist attacks.
They even planned on welding blades to a truck and driving it into people.
But the plot was exposed after the gang made a series of disastrous mistakes.
Prosecutor Brian Altman told the jury: “The police successfully disrupted a plan to commit an act or acts of terrorism on a scale potentially greater than the London bombings in July 2005, had it been allowed to run its course.
“The defendants were proposing to detonate up to eight rucksack bombs in a suicide attack and/or to detonate bombs on timers in crowded areas in order to cause mass deaths and casualties.”
Naseer and Khalid both travelled to terrorist training camps in Pakistan between 2009 and 2011 to learn about bomb-making, poisons and firearms.
After they returned to the UK, the group tried to fund the plot by posing as Muslim Aid charity street collectors, duping legitimate supporters into giving them money.
The Community Security Trust (CST) welcomed the guilty verdict in this trial, but said the terrorists’ suggestion of a gun attack against a synagogue « is yet another disturbing example of would-be anti-Semitic terrorism in Britain. »
"This is the third recent case in which terrorists have contemplated British Jews amongst other UK targets, the others being an al-Qaeda plot of 2011 and the Stock Exchange plot of 2010. Worse still, it follows last year’s Khans case in which a marrried couple solely targeted the Jewish community of North Manchester," the CST added.
The organization continued :"In Britain, terrorism threatens all of society. We are all at equal risk when using public places, such as transport hubs or famous buildings but these cases demonstrate that British Jews face an additional level of threat, due to the sheer number of terrorists who regard Jews as amongst the priority targets for their actions. Last year’s dreadful attack against a Jewish school in Toulouse shows where this hatred can lead."
CST said it "will continue to work with all of our Jewish community, Government, the Police and the rest of society, including other minority groups, to lessen the threat of terrorism against us all."

EJP