BBC, 9 March 2010: Two students fighting deportation to Pakistan were arrested days before a terror strike they were planning to carry out in the UK, a court has heard. Abid Naseer and Ahmed Faraz Khan are appealing against the deportation on the grounds they are a security risk. Mr Naseer was among 12 people held after raids in north-west England in April 2009 but who were never charged.

An MI5 officer told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission they planned an atrocity last April. This is the first time MI5 has gone on record about why the men were arrested. The British intelligence officer – identified only as ZR – told the court Mr Naseer was the ringleader and compared the alleged plan to the attacks on London on 7 July 2005 and the 2006 plot to blow up US-bound planes. . . .

. . . . The officer told the hearing Mr Naseer exchanged coded emails with an al-Qaeda operative called Sohaib while planning the attack. Mr Bannathan said Mr Naseer and Sohaib used women’s names because as Muslim men this was the only way they could access certain websites. . . . .