A fanatic backed by al-Qaeda was jailed for life yesterday for planning the kidnap, torture and beheading of a British soldier as a way of terrorising Muslims who join the Armed Forces.

Parviz Khan, 36, from Alum Rock, Birmingham, was told that he would serve a minimum of 14 years for planning to film the decapitation of the Muslim victim and post it on the internet, which he admitted.

He also pleaded guilty at Leicester Crown Court to supplying equipment to Islamist insurgents in Pakistan and two counts of being in possession of a record or document likely to be of use to a terrorist.

The plot signalled a shift in tactics, from threatening the public with bombs to copying the murder of foreign captives in Iraq. It recalled the death of Kenneth Bigley, who was forced to plead for his life before being beheaded live on the internet. Detectives said that Khan was a dangerous extremist who had lured other sympathisers into the plot and was close to carrying it out.

Detective Superintendent Liam O’Brien, from West Midlands Police’s counter-terrorism unit, said that the force chose to intervene when their surveillance revealed that the cell was preparing the kidnap and murder. “I believe that if we had not stepped in when we did, we would now be investigating the kidnap, beheading and murder of a British soldier.”

Sentencing Khan in his absence, Mr Justice Henriques said: “You have been described by the Crown as a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views and as a fanatic. Having studied \, I unhesitatingly accept that description of you.”

Khan, an unemployed father of three who was born in Derby, established links with terrorist groups on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan while using the cover of delivering humanitarian aid, the court heard.

In Britain, he cajoled and influenced a small coterie of Islamist sympathisers from Alum Rock into discussing or supporting his plan.

A bug installed by the security services in Khan’s home recorded him telling Basiru Gassama, a co-defendant, in November 2006 that he intended to parade the dead soldier’s head on a pole.

Khan, who received £160 a week in state benefits, was heard to say: “We give the judgment . . . we’ll then cut it off like you cut a pig, man. Then you put it on a stick. Then we throw the body, burn it, send the video to the chacha . They will go crazy, they will start searching . . . London, Birmingham, Newcastle, where are these people?”

Gassama, an illegal immigrant from the Gambia, was at one point asked to identify a Gambian Muslim soldier in the British Army who could be lured to the Broad Street area of Birmingham with the promise of drugs, drink and women.

Khan was recorded suggesting that when the soldier was intoxicated he would be forced into a car and driven away.

In the trial of two of Khan’s co-defendants, jurors were told that he had visited a shipping and freight company in Birmingham during 2005 and 2006 to send one-tonne shipments to a village near the Afghan border. He told the authorities that they were for earthquake victims.

The court heard, however, that the equipment included night-vision apparatus, technology to detect cameras and bugs, and split-finger gloves popular with anglers that snipers could use to keep their hands warm. Khan was also recorded showing his five-year-old son how to carry out a beheading. At one point he took away his son’s toys until he proclaimed his love for Osama bin Laden and Abu Hamza, the cleric.

Sentences were also handed down on the four other men involved in Khan’s terrorist cell. Zahoor Iqbal, 30, of Perry Barr, Birmingham, was jailed for seven years for supplying equipment for terrorist acts and supplying money or property for use in terrorism. The court heard that he sent more than £12,000 via a money transfer company in Birmingham to an office in Pakistan, which was retrieved by Khan. “You believed you had an obligation to jihad,” he was told by the judge.

Mohammed Irfan, 31, of Ward End, was jailed for four years after pleading guilty to engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism — namely helping Khan to supply the equipment to Pakistan.

Hamid Elasmar, 44, of Edgbaston, was jailed for three years and four months for pleading guilty to the same charge. Gassama, 30, of Hodge Hill, was jailed for two years for failing to disclose information about the plot. The prosecution conceded that there was no evidence that he had given Khan any help “beyond giving him the impression that he would do so”.

Having already served that term, he now faces deportation. Sentencing him, the judge said: “You knew in very great detail what Parviz Khan was planning.” Amjad Mahmood, 32, of Alum Rock, was cleared of knowing about Khan’s plan to behead a British soldier and failing to inform the authorities about it.

Times Recommends

• Phoebe Caldwell wins Times/Sternberg Award
• Raging against fake pop has its own pitfalls
• How a voice for everyone led to stalemate