Three Birmingham men have gone on trial accused of planning a bomb campaign prosecutors say may have been bigger than the 7 July London attacks.
The men are accused of planning a mass suicide bomb campaign that could have led to eight rucksack bombs being used against multiple targets in the UK.
The accused are Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali, both 27.
The men, appearing at Woolwich Crown Court, deny engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts.
The terror charges relate to the period between December 2010 and September 2011.
‘Suicide videos’
Mr Naseer, from the Sparkhill area of Birmingham, and Mr Khalid, from the Sparkbrook area, are also accused of preparing for acts of terrorism by receiving training in Pakistan.
The jury were told by prosecutors that the pair had recorded suicide videos in Pakistan that would have been played to the world had their plot been completed.
Opening the prosecution case, Brian Altman QC said the three men had been supported by other plotters from the Birmingham area who had helped them raise money by posing as charity workers.
The men had set up a bomb factory and their plans were beginning to advance when they were arrested, Mr Altman said.
He said the men are “jihadists” and “extremists” who were influenced by an al-Qaeda affiliated preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki.
The preacher was killed in a drone strike in Yemen shortly after the arrest of the three men.
Mr Altman said 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”, which killed 52 people.
“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.”
And it is alleged that last year they were planning a bombing campaign that one of them described as “another 9/11”.
It is alleged that, while in Pakistan, Mr Naseer and Mr Khalid received training in how to use weapons and how to make bombs and poisons.
They are also accused of having made suicide videos while they were there.
‘Stealing money’
The men are said to have returned to the UK in July 2011, and it is alleged the group then began trying to make home-made bombs, using a flat in Sparkbrook as their base.
In total, 11 men of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin were arrested over the alleged bomb plot, along with one woman.
Six other men have already admitted travelling to Pakistan for terror training and raising money for terrorist acts.
Mr Altman said the trio on trial at Woolwich Crown Court were “senior members of a home-grown terror cell”.
The group have also been accused of making bogus charity collections in Birmingham.
The two causes they gathered money for received only a fraction of the funds they had collected, prosecutors say, while the rest was intended to pay for the planned attack.
Mr Altman said the men were “despicably stealing money from their own community donated to charity”.
He said the defendants spent a lot of time and effort persuading others to join up with their cause in this country.
The trial continues.
