Terrorist plotters planned to detonate a series of suicide bombs in an attack that could have been more deadly than the July 7 atrocities in London, a court has heard.
Irfan Naseer, 31, and Irfan Khalid, 27, travelled to Pakistan for terrorist training before returning to the UK in July last year, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court were told yesterday.
In one conversation, Naseer was heard agreeing that the July 7 attacks had not done enough damage because there were no nails in the bombs.
The two men, along with Ashik Ali, also 27, are accused of being central figures in the alleged plot.
Ali told police in interview that the plan had involved him wearing a suicide vest as well as carrying a gun, the jury heard.
The group also discussed the use of poisons and attaching blades to the side of a vehicle before driving it into a crowd of people, it is claimed.
Prosecutor Brian Altman, QC, said: "The police 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."
The men deny engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts between Christmas Day 2010 and September 19, 2011.
Naseer is accused of five counts of the offence, Khalid four and Ali three.
For Nasser, Khalid and Ali, all from Birmingham, this is alleged to have included planning a bombing campaign, collecting money for terrorism and recruiting others for terrorism.
Nasser and Khalid are also accused of travelling to Pakistan for training in terrorism.
While in Pakistan, prosecutors claim Naseer and Khalid received training in how to use weapons, how to make bombs and poisons, and also made suicide videos.
The trial continues.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article