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A GANG of Islamic fanatics plotted to blow at least seven airliners out of the sky as they crossed the Atlantic, creating a death toll "on an almost unprecedented scale", a court heard yesterday.The eight men accused of planning to bring down the planes in August 2006 could have been targeting as many as 18 flights, the jury was told. Liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks were to have been smuggled on to the planes and assembled on board. The bombs would all have detonated in under three hours.Security services would have been powerless to halt the plot as all the flights, out of Heathrow and destined for the United States or Canada, would have been in mid-air at the time of the first blast.Outlining the case, which brought chaos to UK airports when stringent rules on carrying liquids on board were imposed after the men were arrested, Peter Wright, QC, prosecuting, said some of the plotters had been ready to sacrifice their own lives.He said: "What these men intended to bring about was a violent and deadly statement of intent that would have truly global impact."These men and others were actively involved in a deadly plan designed to bring about what would have been, had they been successful, a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale. Fortunately. they were arrested before they could put those plans into effect."Three men – Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Mohammed Gulzar – were named as the masterminds of the plot. They often met at a flat in Walthamstow, east London, where police later discovered what they believed to be bomb-making materials.After watching the alleged conspirators for months, police swooped on Ali in a London car park. They found a computer memory stick containing details of one-way flights out of Heathrow's terminal three. The flights, with capacities for up to 285 people, were bound for San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, Washington, New York, plus two to Chicago. Mr Wright said the jury at Woolwich Crown Court might conclude that the defendants were "almost ready to put their plot into practice" at the time of their arrests. "The disaster they contemplated was not long off," he said.The accused and others were prepared to board the aircraft carrying their "deadly cargo" and detonate it in flight, he said. "They were prepared to board an aircraft with the necessary ingredients and equipment to construct and detonate a device that would bring about not only the loss of their own lives but also all of those who happened by chance to be taking the same journey," he saidMr Wright, who described the defendants as having the "cold-eyed certainty of the fanatic", said there was evidence that they planned to bring down more than seven flights. Two of the alleged plotters had spoken of other terminals and as many as 18 suicide bombers.The aim was to use syringes to inject a hydrogen peroxide mixture into 500ml plastic bottles of soft drinks Oasis and Lucozade – hydrogen peroxide can be bought legally but develops "explosive properties" when combined with an organic material. A sugary drink called Tang would have been added to add extra force to the explosion, the court was told. The detonation would have been caused using another substance, that was to have been concealed in AA 1.5 volt batteries, and the bulb or flash from a disposable camera.The prosecution said a "blueprint" of the plot, hand-written by Ali, was found in his diary. He planned to place a pornographic magazine and a condom in his luggage to distract attention from the explosives...By CHRIS GREENWOOD AND ROSS LYDALL
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