LONDON, March 28: Al Qaeda’s number three ordered a British terrorism cell not to pray in public and to pose as western tourists when they travelled to a training camp in Pakistan, an informant told a London court on Tuesday. The men, some of whom are on trial accused of planning bomb attacks on Britain, bought a camera and took photos to keep up the illusion they were tourists, US informant Mohammed Babar told the Old Bailey criminal court.

Babar, 31, a Pakistan-born American, is the key prosecution witness against seven Britons accused of planning to use ammonium fertiliser bombs to blow up possible targets such as pubs, clubs, trains and utility systems.

The men were almost ready to launch the attacks when they were arrested in March 2004, prosecutors say, and Babar has already pleaded guilty in a US court to various terrorism-related offences.

He told the court on Monday that two of the suspects had been part of a cell receiving explosives training in Pakistan and had been under the orders of Al Qaeda’s third-in-command, a man identified as Abdul Hadi.—Reuters