Birmingham Terror 'plot' no bomb making gear, no targets

[TonyGosling]

The jury at the trial were taken through long recordings in which Naseer went to great lengths to explain the finer technical details of explosives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21414518

Ashik Ali doubted whether the men could carry 20kg rucksacks and Naseer said that it would be easier to carry bombs of half that size. He suggested that if they used timers, they could build more devices.

"Seven or eight of them in different places," said Naseer. "With timers on… probably to go boom, boom, boom everywhere."

Investigators had already heard the men talking about being dead by the middle of 2012. Now that the conversations had turned to how to construct devices and how to use them, they moved in to stop the plot progressing.

Time had run out for Irfan Naseer. He, Khalid and Ali were arrested along with nine others. Six men have already pleaded guilty to terrorism offences.

The men had never got to the point of fixing on a target. But in his police interview, Ashik Ali told detectives that Naseer had proposed making suicide bomb vests, acquiring guns and targeting British soldiers.

During the trial, Irfan Naseer denied that he was a terrorist, but he wove a tale of internal Pakistani-community politics in Birmingham with him as the victim of malicious rumours. His barrister told the jury that Naseer was a fantasist who would have made a "rubbish terrorist".
Joker to threat

Anas Zein Al-Abdeen was at school with Irfan Naseer. He told the BBC's Inside Out West Midlands programme that his former friend became increasingly extreme as he entered adulthood, holding views a world away from the man he had known as "Chubby", the school joker.

Popular at school: Irfan Naseer

"I'm sad that this guy could have been serving the community by being a pharmacist, by maybe doing charity work that will really make a difference, instead he's harmed the community," Mr Al-Abdeen said.

"The guys [at school] stuck around with him because he was funny, lively, always had a lot to say, quite outspoken.

"[But] he couldn't adapt to working life. This, I think, is the start of his downfall. He started looking at achieving something else apart from his career or his profession."

Naseer was angry about international politics, expressing frustrations about injustices in the Muslim world.

Mr Al-Abdeen and others in Birmingham have told the BBC that the local Muslim community was increasingly worried about what he was up to. During the trial, the jury heard that one influential local man had confronted Naseer, as rumours spread that he had sent four recruits to a training camp.

[TonyGosling]

... but a great sense of humour
I mean were these guys really serious about a bomb or just having a laugh?

The jury heard that the security services had the men under such close surveillance that they recorded them laughing and joking about their plans and how they did not need to worry about their car's MOT, because they would be dead by the time it expired.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21534048