Seven members of a terror cell involved in plans to conduct attacks on the UK and the US have been jailed for conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions.

The men were part of a team run by the al-Qaeda “general” Dhiren Barot, who was jailed for life last year for plotting to kill “hundreds if not thousands” of people using limousines packed with explosives and a “dirty” radiation bomb.

Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, Junade Feroze, Zia Ul Haq, Abdul Aziz Jalil, Omar Abdur Rehman, Qaisar Shaffi and Nadeem Tarmohamed were vital to his plans, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

Sentencing the men, Mr Justice Butterfield said: “Barot was the instigator of this terrorist planning; he was by some considerable distance the principal participant in the conspiracy.

“Each one of you was recruited by Barot and assisted him at his request.

“Anyone who chooses to participate in such a plan . . . will receive little sympathy from the courts.” The judge told the defendants that the suffering their families would experience was “but a tiny fraction of the suffering that would have been experienced had your plans been translated into reality”.

Barot, a convert to Islam, planned coordinated attacks on symbolic buildings in three cities on the eastern seaboard of the US, including the New York Stock Exchange and the World Bank, the court was told.

Blueprints for these attacks were then developed into plans for a series of attacks on buildings in London and on the capital’s transport system.

Possible targets were the Heathrow Express or a Tube train while in a tunnel under the Thames, it was said.

In the spring of 2004, the UK plans were completed and Barot went to Pakistan. The timing suggests that he went to present his proposals to the al-Qaeda leadership for support and funding, said Johnathan Laidlaw, for the Crown.

But in the summer of that year, the four-year conspiracy came to an end with the men’s arrests.

Jalil, 34, from Luton, was jailed for 26 years; Feroze, 31, from Blackburn, for 22 years; and Bhatti, 27, from Harrow, North London and Tarmohamed, 29, from Willesden, northwest London, for 20 years each.

Ul Haq, 28, from Paddington, West London, was given 18 years. Rehman, 23, from Bushey, Hertfordshire, and Shaffi, 28, also from Willesden, were given 15 years each.

Shaffi was convicted of conspiracy to murder after a month-long trial that ended earlier this week. The other six pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to cause explosions likely to endanger life.

Barot’s team gave him the help that he needed to make it possible for him to operate in this country.

“They were amongst his trusted few. They were his support team,” Mr Laidlaw said.

“We do not suggest it was just these seven men – there may have been others – but these men were the most prominent among that team.”

While Barot “lived in the shadows”, planning the attacks, he needed the help “of those who could provide him with accommodation, false identities, access to false bank accounts, who could provide a place of storage for his plans and research material and access to computers etc”, the barrister said.

He also needed minders and drivers – roles that Jalil, Bhatti and Feroze took on at various points, the court was told.

The seven defendants did not produce the plans for the attacks and nor were they the instigators of them.

They were, it was said, “substantially subordinate” to Barot – who was at “general rank” – with Feroze, Jalil and Tarmohamed the next rank down as “lieutenants”, and the others holding more junior positions.

Mr Justice Butterfield said he had “suspicions” that some of the men may have recruited others to the terror cell.

But he pointed out that it was “certainly a possibility that the plans would not have been executed at all”.

The Home Secretary, John Reid, said: “The outcome of this trial . . . shows the extent of the . . . threat the UK faces from terrorism.

“It also highlights the international nature of the threat and the continuing hard work of the Security Service and police in disrupting these plots.

“I am pleased that these seven men have been brought to justice and are now in prison . . . Their goal was mass murder, mass panic and utter devastation.”

Peter Clarke, the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and head of Counter Terrorism Command, said: “Dhiren Barot and his gang were determined terrorists who planned bombings on both sides of the Atlantic.

“We know Barot was the ringleader . . . However, he needed the help of the seven men who have been jailed today.”

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