Life for fertiliser bomb plot five

An exact replica of the bomb they were planning to explode, made from 600kg of chemical fertiliser was reconstructed with the help of the FBI - it shows how the bomb could have been used in a crowded place to kill hundreds of inncoent people.

It was the biggest anti-terrorist operation ever seen in the UK.

A group of young British men inspired by the Oklahoma bombing had half a metric tonne of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, and a deadly formula to convert it into a bomb.

They boasted of connections with al-Qaida, taking orders from its number three - Abdul Hadi.

A year and a half before the 7/7 attacks, M15 recorded them meeting two of the suicide bombers, ordinary men including a taxi driver and a gas fitter - who plotted mass murder.

They took the flag of religion and flew it like there was no tomorrow.

They were led by Omar Khyam, a 25-year-old whose grandfather fought for the British Army in the second world war.

He had grown up with Jawad Akbar - a university student who believed "every Muslim must train for military combat."

They wanted to target crowded locarions - the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and a London nightclub: There was an M15 recording of the pair plotting to blow up Ministy of Sound.

Khyam: "If you got a job in a bar yeah or club say the Ministry of Sound what are you planning to do there then?"

Akbar: "Blow the whole thing up........the biggest night club in central London...no one can even turn around and say 'oh they were innocent' those slags dancing around...."

Akbar: "You don't think this place is bugged, do you? Khyam: "No, I don't think it's bugged bruv, at all, I don't even think the car's bugged.

In fact, they had been bugged for months - in one of M15's most sophisticated operations.

The security services had first been alerted to Khyam becuase he was linked to a cell in Luton raising money for Kashmiri terrorists.

We've obtained these pictures of Khyam using a stolen credit card to raise money. Detectives were then tipped off by staff at a West London storage depot - Khyam and his associates had rented space for a massive amount of fertiliser, the same type used by the IRA.

A hidden camera was installed and Khyam was filmed marking the bag so that he'd know if anybody had tampered with it.

He was right to be suspicious - the police had swapped the fertiliser with a harmless substance. Over the next few weeks, hundreds of officers recorded the group as they planned their attack.

Police moved in because they decided to move in when Khyam suddenly bought tickets to Pakistan - detectives feared they were about to lose him.

Crawley

The commuter town of Crawley, in West Sussex is where four of the suspects grew up.

The men were arrested here in March 2004 but their journey to radicalism had begun much earlier.

In fact Channel 4 News can reveal that there were concerns here about their behaviour as early as 1999. Concerns that the authorities are accused of ignoring.

Omar Khyam's family moved here from Pakistan in the 1970s. He went to a mainly white school and was captain of the cricket team.

Matt Lewis, Khyam's school friend, said: "He was very quiet, erm, friendly, quite smiley person. But nothing aggressive about him at all."

But that changed after he left school. It was a time when extremist clerics were allowed to preach openly in Britain.

One of those was Omar Bakri, leader of the now-banned group, Al Muhajaroun. In the 1990s, he came to Crawley looking for young recruits.

Imediatley after Khyam was arrested, Bakri admitted that the teenager had been one of his pupils:"I used to know some of them, to see them in the Mosque and Community Centre. They are very peaceful young men.We tracked down a man who grew up in Crawley and saw the influence Bakri was having on the young Khaym and his friends:

"It's routed in psychological insecuritites mainly centred around identitiy and esteem. I still mainttain that these guys are not evil but their sense of self rightiousness has overtaken all intellect. That's what's happened right now."

At the age of just 18, Khyam made national headlines, when he ran away to a military training camp in Kashmir - his family had to use their own contacts in Pakistan to find him and bring him back.

Jihadi cause

But Khyam remained commited to the Jihadi cause. He would often travel across the country raising finds for military fighters. Here in Luton he met some of the men who would later be charged with him."

One of those was taxi driver Salahuddin Amin. During his police interviews he admitted the men had trained in explosives. The training was held in pakistan - during the trip, they recieved orders to attack the UK.

This is the house where they stayed. Omar Khyam posed as a tourist with Antony Garcia, another of the plotters.

On their travels, the group met an American college drop out, Mohamed Janaid Barbar. Barbar was a known militant who had given an exclusive interview to ITN just after 9/11.

Barbar would later turn supergrass, the first al-Qaida witness to appear at the old bailey, his evidence helped convict Khyam and the four others. Khyam's younger brother, Sujhah Mahmood, was found not guilty.

Described as academcially slow and easily influenced by his brother, he was just 17 when he was arrested.

Also cleared of all charges - university student Nabeel Hussain. He was used by Khyam and tricked into paying for the storage facilities for the fertiliser.

The trial of the fertiliser bomb plotters lasted over a year - the jury took a record seven weeks to reach their verdicts.

Omar Khyam and the rest of his gang were all given life sentences. The judge told them: "You have betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity."

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