Planned Attack On TA Centre

Bomb Plot: Four Jailed For Planning TA Attack


The extremists are branded "particularly dangerous" after
basing their plans on an online al Qaeda training manual.




Mohammed Ahmed, Syed Farham Hussain, Zahid Iqbal and Umar
Arshad











Four men have been sentenced for their part in a plot to detonate
a bomb at a Territorial Army (TA) base.

Zahid Iqbal, 31, and Mohammed Sharfaraz Ahmed, 25, who wanted to guide a bomb
mounted onto a remote-controlled toy car into the base, have been sentenced to
life in prison.

Security services heard the pair discussing the plot on the telephone between
January, 2011 and April, 2012.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Wilkie QC said the pair posed "a significant
risk of serious harm to the public".

He imposed a custodial sentence of least 11 years and three months, with a
five-year extension period subject to licence.

Umar Arshad, 24, and Syed Farhan Hussain, 22, were jailed for six years and
nine months and five years and three months respectively for their roles in
preparing a terrorist attack.

Security services had heard the four men discussing methods, materials and
targets for a terrorist attack, the court heard.

Iqbal and Ahmed talked about making an improvised explosive device (IED)
based on instructions in online al Qaeda manual "How to make a bomb in the
kitchen of your mom - by the al Qaeda chef", the court was told.

Covert recordings of the pair heard Iqbal suggesting attaching the bomb to a
remote controlled toy car and sending it under the gap of an entrance gate at a
TA centre in Luton.

Iqbal was recorded telling Ahmed: "I was looking and drove past like the TA
centre, Marsh Road. At the bottom of their gate there's quite a big gap.

"If you had a little toy car, it drives underneath one of their vehicles or
something."

The men were arrested following a series of raids at their homes in April
last year after a joint operation by the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism
Command and the British Security Service (BSS).

The court heard that Iqbal acted as a facilitator for people who wanted to
travel for "extremist purposes" and had helped Ahmed travel to Pakistan in
March, 2011 for military training.

Mr Wilkie said a further 13 counts relating to the possession of information
contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000 should be left on the file.

Addressing Iqbal and Ahmed, Mr Wilkie said: "In each of their cases, their
persistent commitment to terrorist activity, in a number of different ways, over
a significant period of time and, in each case, their willingness to take
practical steps to obtain terrorist training abroad, marks them as particularly
dangerous."