3 British men convicted in terrorist bomb plot
2/21/2013LONDON — Three young British Muslims have been convicted of plotting terrorist bomb attacks that prosecutors said were intended to be bigger than the 2005 London transit bombings.
A London jury found 27-year-old Irfan Khalid, 31-year-old Irfan Naseer and Ashik Ali, 27, of being central figures in the foiled plot to explode knapsack bombs.
Prosecutors said the men, fired up by the sermons of a US.-born al-Qaida preacher, hoped to cause carnage on a mass scale. Their plot was undone by mishaps with money and logistics, and ended in a police counterterrorism swoop in 2011.
Several other suspects have pleaded guilty to offenses related to the plot.
In July 2005, suicide bombers killed 52 commuters on London's subway and bus network.