This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Two university students have been convicted of wanting to kill on London’s streets in the name of Islamic State in what counter-terrorism officials believe was the most significant jihadi plot targeting Britain in a decade.

Police, soldiers and civilians were the intended targets of the conspiracy, with a moped being used to stage drive-by killings after the terrorists had gained a gun, silencer and ammunition from a London-based criminal.

Ringleader Tarik Hassane, 22, pleaded guilty to having directed others in the plot through encrypted social media programs, while he was a medical student.

His friend Suhaib Majeed, 21, a physics student at King’s College London and a prize-winning maths student, was convicted of the plot by a jury at the Old Bailey. Both were born and raised in west London and were friends from Westminster City school. They were lured by extremist Islamist online propaganda and personal contacts to throw away glittering futures.

Hassane is suspected of associating with Mohammed Emwazi, who gained worldwide notoriety as Isis’s “Jihadi John”. They grew up in the same area and went to the same mosque in west London.

There was a five-year age difference between Hassane and Emwazi, and on social media Hassane wrote about the influence of older people he met at the mosque, when he was aged 16. He said he “met some good older practising bros. Started hanging around with them …”

The Guardian understands Hassane is also believed by investigators to have visited Isis-controlled territory in Syria and pledged allegiance to the terrorist group in July 2014.

In encrypted messages the group had called itself “the turnup terror squad”, and the plotters were spurred on by a September 2014 fatwa from Isis urging “its supporters to kill disbelievers in the west”. The effects of that have since been felt in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere.

Investigators believe the plotters led by Hassane were in contact and receiving directions from Isis in Syria in encrypted communications via social media platforms.

Hassane was known as “the surgeon” and communicated with other plotters via the encrypted messaging services Telegram and Pidgin, using a mixture of Arabic and London street slang.

They also used a suite of encryption tools developed by jihadis known as Asrar al-Mujahideen (Secrets of the Mujahideen), which was developed by al-Qaida.

Majeed was captured by a surveillance officer inRegent’s Park. London, while communicating with the Isis contact, who was telling him how to install layers of encryption on a laptop.

Two other men were convicted of firearms offences, for sourcing and supplying the firearm. But Nyall Hamlett, 25, and Nathan Cuffy, 26, were acquitted of involvement in the terror plot or knowing what Majeed or Hassane were really intending.

Cuffy was found with other firearms and both he and Hamlett are facing significant jail terms for the firearms offences.

Commander Dean Haydon, Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism, said: “This is an elevation of complexity … committing a drive-by shooting, acquiring a firearm, silencer and ammunition, in broad daylight targeting police, military and members of the public before making their getaway.”

In early 2014 Hassane’s extremism was clear in his writings on a social media platform called AskFM.

He praised Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, said by the US to be one of the most influential jihadi theorists, and there are frequent mentions of the writings and YouTube videos of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric linked to multiple terrorist plots against Britain and the US, who was killed in a drone strike.

Hassane praised Osama bin Laden as a martyr, writing: “He’s a big mujahid. May Allah accept him as a shaheed [martyr] ameen.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shepherd’s Bush police station is believed to have been one of the plotters’ targets. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

He also wrote: “Muslims shouldn’t be in the UK in the first place,” and agreed it was obligatory to go to Syria.

By 2013 Hassane was a medical student in Khartoum, Sudan, at a university targeted by Islamist extremists.

The Islamic Cultural Association there was taken over by a British extremist, Mohammed Fakhri, in 2013 and other students became radicalised. Fakhri joined Isis, and 17 other British medical students also skipped their studies to join the nascent “caliphate”.

The plot to attack London was stopped by a joint operation by Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command and Britain’s domestic and foreign intelligence services.

Moped plot students threw away promising future in pursuit of jihad Read more

The first arrests came one day after the plotters took possession of the firearm, bullets and silencer in late September 2014. They were also trying to get money to buy a moped, which they would use to ride around west London to attack their targets.

These are believed to have been Shepherd’s Bush police station and a Territorial Army barracks in White City, both in west London. They were reconnoitred by Hassane using Google Street View.

After his co-conspirators were arrested, Hassane still came back to London from Sudan, determined to carry out the attack, and was arrested in October 2014.

Isis intended Hassane to lead marauding armed terrorists to attack London weeks before the January 2015 atrocities in Paris. Haydon said: “It does draw parallels with Paris. The attackers were intent on murder, intent on using a firearm, intent on causing fear, distress, disorder in a particular part of west London.”