A Muslim convert planned to detonate a dirty bomb and launch an attack on London's Tube, a court has heard.
Source BBC
Former Hindu Dhiren Barot, 34, from London, planned "massive explosions" in a synchronised attack in the US and UK.
Barot, who admitted conspiracy to murder last month, planned to pack limousines with gas cylinders and also use a radioactive "dirty" bomb.Lawyers for Barot have insisted that he had neither funding nor bomb-making materials at the time he was caught.
Barot, from Kingsbury in north-west London, is to be sentenced on Tuesday.
The would-be bomber planned attacks on various unspecified targets in Britain, prosecution QC Edmund Lawson said.
"There were plans for the detonation of a radiation dispersal device, more commonly known as a dirty bomb, the use of a petrol tanker to cause an explosion, and an attack on London's rail or Underground network, including the Heathrow Express, of an explosion on a Tube train while in a tunnel under the River Thames."
The prosecution said Barot had written: "Imagine the chaos that would be caused if a powerful explosion were to rip through here [London] and actually rupture the river itself.
"That would cause pandemonium, what with the explosions, flooding, drowning etc that would occur."
Barot also planned to target the IMF and the World Bank in Washington DC.
The New York Stock Exchange building and the Citigroup headquarters, as well as the Prudential building in Newark, New Jersey, were also among his targets.
Barot admired the Madrid train bombings and wrote he was bent on creating "another black day for the enemies of Islam and a victory for the Muslims", Mr Lawson said.
At the heart of Barot's plot was a scheme entitled "gas limos project", uncovered in a document signed by him and found in Pakistan, Mr Lawson said.
Barot had planned to fill limousines with gas cylinders and detonate them in underground car parks near financial institutions.
Mr Lawson said Barot had dubbed the Madrid attacks "the definitive accident" which "deserves to be emulated more than any other". The plotter had travelled to Pakistan to brief his "terrorist masters", the court heard. Barot's plans for bombings in the US were initiated before the 11 September attacks, then shelved, but worked on as late as February 2004, Mr Lawson maintained.
'Murderous plans' These US plans were used in the planning of synchronised attacks in the UK, he added. "The gas limos project might be seen as the culmination of Barot's murderous plans.
"There were various possible methods of attack raised for consideration, including part of what was to be considered for the UK.
"They included parking limousines packed with explosives next to or underneath the target buildings, arson, by means of hijacked petrol tankers, or igniting gas cylinders and even possibly the use of an aeroplane."
The court heard how Barot had used false identities, and at least one false passport, and had only been caught because of a "meticulous and impressive" police operation with input from British, American and Pakistani intelligence.