A British-based Islamist has been found guilty of plotting a Remembrance Day beheading on the streets of Britain, inspired by a “chilling fatwa” from Islamic State.



Nadir Syed, 22, from Southall, west London, planned to emulate the brutal murder of soldier Lee Rigby. Police believe his arrest four days before Remembrance Sunday last year prevented a terror attack targeting police and soldiers that could have been even worse than the one resulting in Rigby’s horrific death.

It is thought the plot was one of seven Isis-linked attacks that David Cameron said had been foiled in the past year. “[Syed] hated the country he was brought up in and hated the police, hated the soldiers and completely detested them,” said a Scotland Yard spokesman.

Syed denied plotting the attack but a jury at Woolwich crown court found him guilty of preparation of terrorist acts between 20 September and 7 November 2014, inspired by a fatwa issued by the Isis spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani in the autumn of 2014.

After two weeks of deliberations, the jury were unable to reach verdicts on two co-defendants, Yousaf Syed and Haseeb Hamayoon, and a retrial has been ordered.

The jury heard that Syed became obsessed with the murder of Rigby and responded on social media to the fatwa, which called on all Muslims to arm themselves and attack “disbelieving” westerners, to “rig the roads with explosives”, “attack their bases” and “cut off their heads”.

During the trial, the jury heard the he was “unnaturally interested in murders and beheadings”. He stored and shared material glorifying the beheadings of Isis victims including the British taxi driver Alan Henning and the US journalist James Foley.

In an encrypted chatroom on the Telegram app he discussed the fatwa and terror attacks on westerners by Mohammed Emwazi, known as “Jihadi John”. Syed described Michael Adebolajo, one of Rigby’s killers, as “a diamond geezer” and also had an image of him with the soldier’s dismembered body and other images of beheading victims and suicide bombers on his phone. He said “wearing a poppy supports murdering terrorist”.

Although there was no specific attack plan, he had bought a kitchen knife hours before his arrest, and the communications relating to the fatwa intensified in the weeks before Remembrance Day. It was enough evidence for the jury to side with the prosecution, who believed an attack was real and imminent.

In the run-up to Remembrance Sunday Syed chatted on WhatsApp and on Telegram, where he shared his opinions on two forums, Tawheed Wal Bara’ah (Belief and Salvation), which had 45 members, and The Lads, which had just four members, including preachers Abu Waleed and Abu Haleema.

By last November the plot had developed from discussions to the sourcing of knives to carry out the attacks. Conscious that one of Rigby’s killers had bought a knife the day before he attacked, the police swooped. “Once you get into buying knives you’re in the endgame. That was the tipping point,” said one Scotland Yard source.

During the trial Syed cut an immature figure, giggling at evidence. He testified said he was only buying a kitchen knife as a gift for his mother. “I hadn’t seen her for a long time. She’s a housewife and she does a lot of cooking, so I thought I’d get her a set of Victorinox knives,” he told the court.

But Syed’s true character emerged in jokes he made with a friend about finding a wife who wanted to kill non-believers. He sent a photograph of himself in a suit to the friend and asked for a wife of “any race” as long as she had “kill kuff manhaj”, meaning someone who believed in killing non-believers.

Syed’s cell at Belmarsh jail was searched during the course of the trial and documents were found on which he had drawn a picture of a sword with the words “the clanging of swords” written in Arabic and blood dripping from the blade.

In a diary there was a sketch of a masked man with a knife standing in front of an Islamic flag, and on another page the words “Islamic State!” had been written with an Islamic flag.

Syed was born in Barking, east London, and the family moved first to Slough before returning to Pakistan in 2002 and again in 2006, then returning to Britain in 2009 and settling in Southall.

He ended up two years behind at school after being forced to drop his GCSEs during one trip back to Pakistan caused by his father’s business interests in “land and property”.

In the end he left West Thames College in Hounslow in 2013 at the age of 20 with a level 3 BTEC in combined science, and he said he then decided to have a “little break and think what to do for university”. He added: “I was getting my head around what field to go into permanently.”

He applied for catering and “fundraising” jobs, he said, but did not work full-time and was signing on for jobseeker’s allowance. He drank alcohol, smoked and went to parties, but in 2012 he turned his back on drink and rap music during Ramadan, and after attending mosques in Southall and Hounslow he started going to lectures in a Southall restaurant and attending marches and demos against the war in Syria.

“I felt good staying away from any bad influences. My education was better and especially my relationship with my family was much better,” Syed said.

Over six weeks, jurors heard how Syed’s attitude to extreme violence permeated all aspects of his life. The pincode for his phone was 77911, a reference to the London bombings on 7 July 2005 and the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.



Nadir first got into trouble in December 2013 when he was involved in an antisocial behaviour incident. A month later his passport was seized when he breached his bail conditions trying to board a flight to Turkey.

Commander Richard Walton, head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, said London was a safer place following Syed’s conviction. “This was an intense and lengthy operation by my officers, supported by the intelligence agencies, and I have no doubt that London is a safer place today with this conviction,” he said.