Three ‘Isil-inspired jihadists planned Remembrance Day beheading in Britain’

From the Telegraph, the Express and Star and the Daily Mail

Three Islamist jihadists planned a Remembrance Day beheading on the streets of Britain in the name of Isil, a court heard.

The trio planned to use a Rambo-style hunting knife to murder a police officer, soldier or member of the public after acting on a “truly chilling” fatwa from the Syrian terror group.

Nadir Syed, 21, Yousaf Syed, 19, and Haseeb Hamayoon, 27, were obsessed with and wanted to copy the brutal killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby and were “unnaturally interested in murders and beheadings”, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

They planned a knives attack for around Remembrance Sunday and Remembrance Day in November last year and filmed themselves stamping on a poppy in the street. 

The men were arrested just days before the annual remembrance events and weeks after Isil preacher Abu Muhammad Al Adnani had encouraged attacks in Western countries in an online call to arms.

The two Syeds, who are cousins, had planned to attack the UK after failing to travel to Syria and had become “landlocked” in this country.

The men were obsessed with the murder of Lee Rigby and Nadir Syed described one of his killers, Michael Adebolajo, as a “diamond geezer”.

He also had an image of Adebolajo with the soldier’s dismembered body and other images of beheading victims and suicide bombers on his phone. 

The court heard that Yousaf Syed had called his cat “7/7” while Nadir Syed had “77911” as the pin code on his mobile phone, which he bragged to police over.

Hamayoon also staked out and took photos of a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) patrolling a car park at a mosque in Hounslow, west London, and bought a ‘Rambo First Blood II’ knife, thought to be from bladebargains.co.uk, Jurors were shown two images of PCSOs, one patrolling the car park of a mosque and another up close, allegedly taken by the plotters.

Mr Hill said: “There was also a stored image of a Police Community Support Officer. Why did Nadir Syed have and keep these images? It is to be noted that Haseeb Hamayoon also took photographs of a PCSO patrolling the car park at the mosque in Hounslow on 29 September 2014.”

Jurors were also shown a photograph of three boys with Islamic State headbands holding a decapitated head, and a photo of two suicide bombers, both allegedly stored on Nadir Syed’s phone.

Jurors were shown a video of the Syeds standing in a street and stamping on a poppy as they giggle and smirk.

One of them says: “May the poppy go to hell inshallah”. Mr Hill (Counsel for the prosecution) said: “Their attitude to the poppy as the remembrance image in this country is clear.”

Nadir Syed, from Hounslow, west London, and Yousaf Syed, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, wore matching maroon jumpers and chatted and smirked as they sat in the dock.

Hamayoon from Hayes, west London, sat alongside them. All three deny the charges.

The court heard how the Syeds had tried to travel to Syria with a third man, Luqman Warsame, in January last year.