Doctors planned 'wave of bombings'

Iraqi Bilal Abdulla, 28, and Jordanian Mohammed Asha, 29, travelled to Britain to further their careers in medicine at university and NHS hospitals.

But prosecutors said the pair were secretly members of an Islamic terrorist cell who wanted to plunge the nation back into the terror of July 2005.

Woolwich Crown Court was told the men turned their attention from treating illnesses to planning a series of devastating car bombs in busy urban centres.

They used their intelligence and academic knowledge to conceal their tracks as they spent six months buying vehicles, renting a property and preparing the bombs, the court heard.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC said the men had access to extra bomb materials, including mobile phone detonators, and at least two more vehicles for further attacks. He said only "good fortune" saved hundreds of late-night revellers when two Mercedes cars packed full of fuel, gas canisters and nails were left in London's West End on June 29 last year.

The cars failed to detonate leaving Abdulla, and a third conspirator Kafeel Ahmed, 28, on the run with the police and security services close behind.

The next day the two men drove a four-wheel drive, also prepared as an improvised bomb, into the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport on its busiest day of the year. The explosive materials inside the green Jeep Cherokee also failed to detonate, leaving Ahmed with fatal burns as Abdulla was arrested by police.

Mr Laidlaw said: "Their plan was to carry out a series of attacks on the public using bombs concealed in vehicles. No warnings were to be given and the cars were to be positioned in busy urban areas. In short, these men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and a wholesale scale."

Abdulla, of Houston, Glasgow, and Asha, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.