Seven men accused of plotting to blow up planes by smuggling bombs in their hand luggage and detonating them mid-flight will face a retrial.

The first trial ended on Monday, with three of the men - Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain - convicted of conspiracy to murder.

However, a jury failed to reach a verdict on four other men after becoming deadlocked over the key allegation that the plotters intended to down transatlantic jets. An eighth man was cleared of all charges.

Convicted: (Left to right) Tanvir Hussain, Abdullah Ahmed Ali and Assad Sarwar were found guilty of conspiracy to kill using homemade liquid bombs

The decision by Sir Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, to retry the seven - including those already found guilty of conspiracy to murder - came after a war of words broke out over the case's failure.

Politicians queried the wisdom of the former home secretary John Reid's comments in the summer of 2006 when he said the attack would have led to a loss of life on an 'unprecedented scale'.

The CIA has also been blamed for forcing Britain's hand in making arrests too early after they instructed the Pakistani authorities to arrest a key suspect there.

Prosecutors and police met yesterday afternoon to discuss the outcome of the five-month trial.

The seven men to be retried are Ali, 27, Sarwar, 28, Hussain, 27, Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, Waheed Zaman, 24, and Umar Islam, 30.

They will all be retried on a charge of conspiring to murder 'persons unknown by the detonation of improvised explosive devices on board transatlantic passenger aircraft' between January 1 and August 11 2006.

Ibrahim Savant and Arafat Waheed Khan face a retrial on a general charge of conspiracy to murder

Four of them - Savant, Khan, Zaman and Islam - will also be tried again on a general charge of conspiracy to murder between the same dates.

The jury convicted Ali, Sarwar and Hussain of this charge by a majority of 10 to two, but could not agree verdicts for the other men.

An eighth man, Mohammed Gulzar, 27, was cleared of all charges and cannot face a retrial.

Umar Islam and Waheed Zaman will also be retried on a general charge of conspiracy to murder

Air travellers were thrown into chaos after police swooped on the alleged east London-based bomb plotters on August 9 2006.

New rules introduced the following day resulted in hundreds of cancelled flights and massive queues at Britain's airports.

Virgin Atlantic and British Airways have called for a review of restrictions on carrying liquids and gels in hand luggage on aircraft.

But the Government has said they must be maintained despite the jury's inconclusive verdicts.

The defendants are: Ali, of Prospect Hill, Walthamstow, east London; Sarwar, of Walton Drive, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire; Hussain, of Nottingham Road, Leyton, east London; Savant, of Denver Road, Stoke Newington, north London; Khan, of Farnan Avenue, Walthamstow; Zaman, of Queen's Road, Walthamstow; and Islam, aka Brian Young, of Bushey Road, Plaistow, east London.