US terror trial for 'Del Boy' Briton caught in FBI sting

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The Times
By Bob Graham

THE two men who stood in the presidential suite overlooking Newark airport gazed through the window at aircraft landing and taking off. They smiled at the prospect of blowing the aircraft out of the skies.
Their conversation was conspiratorial and filled with hatred for the United States. “The Americans are bastards,” said Hemant Lakhani, a Londoner who had flown in the night before from Heathrow.

His host spoke of how he wanted to start a jihad (holy war) by blowing up passenger aircraft across America.

The meeting between Mr Lakhani, 69, an Indian-born Briton who posed as the supplier of ground-to-air missiles, and his companion, who used only his middle name — Haji — lasted for almost three hours and was the culmination of nearly two years of careful planning.

Haji claimed to be acting on behalf of Muslim extremists, originally from Somalia, who had formed a terrorist cell in the United States. He said that he wanted to buy Soviet-made weapons. Mr Lakhani told Haji that with the missiles he could provide, it would be possible to co-ordinate a series of attacks.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-1424405,00.html