Advertisement

  1. National

Three men guilty of terror plot

Three men from Birmingham have been found guilty of being "central figures" in a terrorist bomb plot that would have been bigger than the 7/7 attacks if it had not been foiled by the authorities.

View all 18 updates ›

Police: Public a 'whole lot safer' after terror verdict

West Midlands Police have said the public is a "whole lot safer", after three men were found guilty of leading a terrorist bomb plot that could have been bigger than the July 7 bombings.

Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, from West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit said that Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, all from Birmingham, were "critical" of the 7/7 bombers, because "they didn't kill enough people". Mr Beale added:

They wanted to create their own 9/11. As a group, had they been able to achieve their objective, we think they would have killed numerous people and caused a whole lot of misery and injury on others.

We don't have any specific information that says that they knew that this was what these guys planned to do.

Our interpretation of the evidence was that they hadn't settled on any specific target.

They aspired to make and detonate bombs in crowded places, places where we go shopping, for our entertainment, to travel, they wanted to attack these places with a mixture of bombs and suicide bombs.

– Assistant Chief Constable Marcus Beale, West Midlands Police Counter Terrorism Unit
  1. Read more
  2. 18 updates
Three men guilty of terror plot

More on this story