Three British Muslims admit bid to bomb Heathrow and Commons with liquid explosives

Three British Muslims accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic planes flying out of Heathrow with liquid bombs admitted today attempting to cause explosions.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27, admitted the offence at Woolwich Crown Court, in South-East London.
But they still deny that their bombs were part of a wave of suicide attacks on US-bound passenger jets using homemade devices made of hydrogen peroxide smuggled on board in Lucozade and Oasis soft drinks bottles.
Instead they claim they were only planning to set off small devices around London in protest at UK foreign policy and had no intention to kill or cause injuries

The three men listed potential targets as the Houses of Parliament, Heathrow Terminal Three, other 'iconic' buildings or sites such as oil refineries.
The jury must now decide whether they - and five other defendants - are guilty of conspiracy to murder.
The three men also admitted conspiring to cause public nuisance by distributing videos threatening suicide bomb attacks in Britain.
Two of their co-defendants, Ibrahim Savant, 27, and Umar Islam, 30, also admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance.
The charges the men face have been amended. All eight men deny two charges of conspiracy to murder between January 1 and August 11 2006.
One of the charges specifies that the attacks would involve the detonation of improvised bombs on passenger aircraft.
Prosecutors claim the eight men plotted to blow up passenger jets flying from Heathrow to major cities in North America.

They planned to use powerful hydrogen peroxide liquid bombs disguised as soft drinks to bypass airport security, jurors were told.
The devices would be assembled by injecting the chemicals into plastic soft drinks bottles and detonated using a battery from a camera flash, it was claimed.
They were being assembled at a bomb factory flat bought by the gang for cash in Forest Road, Walthamstow, north east London, the court heard.
The same flat was used by six members of the gang to record martyrdom videos in which they ranted hatred against the West and non-Muslims, jurors were told.
Peter Wright QC, prosecuting, said the gang were 'not long off' executing their plan when counter terrorist police swooped in August 2006.

He said Ali, the alleged ringleader of the plot, was caught with a blueprint for the operation recorded in a pocket diary and on a computer memory stick.
Stashes of hydrogen peroxide and other bomb-making equipment were found hidden at Sarwar's home and in woodland nearby, the court heard.
The eight men wanted to achieve 'immortality' by murdering thousands of aircraft passengers in a series of suicide attacks, the jury was told.
The home-made liquid bomb plot conspirators expected to be 'lionised' by other Islamic extremists across the globe.

Mr Wright said every member of the terrorist gang was signed up for a deadly attack which would 'shock the world' and strike fear into the hearts of millions.
Summing up the prosecution case, he said: 'It was their chance to achieve immortality and notoriety in equal measure.'
Mr Wright said: 'We say from the deployment of this evidence before you, we say you can be sure of the involvement of each of these men in a plot to murder as many civilian passengers as possible upon as many civilian aircraft as possible.
'And that some of these men were prepared to lose their life in achieving it whilst others were prepared to facilitate them in doing so in pursuit of a common goal.'
He added: 'There may be other levels of sophistication represented by these individuals but each was signed up to the cause, each was ready, willing and able to play their part in a deadly attack to bring about its successful and bloody conclusion.'

Mr Wright said: 'Each was prepared to kill and to do so on a wholly indiscriminate basis, irrespective of age, belief, sex and to do so without the slightest blink of an eye.'
Mr Wright said it did not matter whether any of the defendants had shown any religious or political extremism in the past.
But he said the martyrdom tapes were an 'insight' into the murderous intent of the six men who recorded them.
He said the conspirators wanted to set an example for others to follow.
He said: 'We say what they intended to do was to shock the world, not merely by the nature of the acts engaged in, but also by the fact that such actions could be, and were, committed by those who were apparently ordinary law-abiding citizens.
'This was part of the message to the wider audience. A statement of the strength of resistance to perceived Muslim oppression across the globe.
'Namely there were those drawn from ordinary, everyday lives who were ready, able and willing, not withstanding their comfortable and safe existence, to make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good.'

In their defence, Ali and Sarwar said they planned to record a documentary highlighting injustices against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.
A small explosion at the Houses of Parliament in which no one would be hurt would act as a publicity stunt to draw attention to the programme.
The two men also considered other targets including gas terminals, oil refineries and airports, Sarwar said.
Ali and the five other men who recorded videos said they were acting the role of violent hate-filled extremists and the footage would be woven into the video.
Hussain admitted he agreed to appear in an al Qaida-style militant video, but said he was shocked when he learned of the publicity bomb plot.

The public nuisance charge stated the offence would be by 'the publication or distribution of video recordings threatening the murder of persons by means of suicide operations, such threats being designed to influence the Government and intimidate the public'.
The defendants are Ali, of Prospect Hill, Walthamstow, east London; Sarwar, 28, of Walton Drive, High Wycombe, Bucks; Hussain, 27, of Nottingham Road, Leyton, east London; Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Priory Road, Barking, east London; Savant, 27, of Denver Road, Stoke Newington, north London, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, of Farnan Avenue, Walthamstow; Waheed Zaman, 24, of Queen's Road, Walthamstow; and Islam, aka Brian Young, 30, of Bushey Road, Plaistow, east London.

The jury is expected to retire next week.