LONDON, Aug 21: Prosecutors in Britain charged eight suspects on Monday with conspiracy to murder and preparing acts of terrorism in connection with an alleged plot to put suicide bombers onto US-bound airliners.

The charges were announced as officials gave more details of their probe — including the discovery of bomb-making equipment — into a conspiracy police have said was intended to cause ‘mass murder on an unimaginable scale.

Apart from the eight main suspects, the Crown Prosecution Service said that three others, including a woman and a 17-year-old youth, had been charged with lesser offences under terrorism legislation.

All 11 are expected to appear at a central London court on Tuesday.

Eleven further people remain in custody, while one woman has been released without charge.

“The investigation is far from complete. The scale is immense. Enquiries will span the globe,” said deputy assistant commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorist branch.

Since the wave of arrests on Aug 10, Mr Clarke said, 69 searches have been conducted in homes, businesses, vehicles and open spaces, yielding bomb-making equipment including chemicals and electrical components.

Included in the seizures have been quantities of hydrogen peroxide, which is a potential explosive, he added.

Police have also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones, and 800 ‘removable storage media such as computer memory sticks, CDs and DVDs including so-called ‘martyrdom videos.

The head of the CPS’s counter-terrorism division, Susan Hemming, said the charges had been laid “at the earliest practicable opportunity” after she had personally sized up the evidence against each individual.

“Eight individuals have been charged with two offences relating to an alleged plot to manufacture and smuggle the component parts of improvised explosive devices onto aircraft and assemble and detonate them on board,” she told reporters in central London.

“Those individuals have been charged with conspiracy to murder and the new offence of preparing acts of terrorism contrary to section 5 of the Terrorism Act 2006,” she said.

Of the other three, “one has been charged with possession of articles useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism and two with failing to disclose information of material assistance in preventing an act of terrorism.”

The CPS identified the eight as Ahmed Abdullah Ali, Tanvir Hussain, Umar Islam (also known as Brian Young), Arafat Waheed Khan, Assad Ali Sarwar, Adam Khatib, Ibrahim Savant and Waheed Zaman.

Nine of the 11 charged featured on a list released on August 11 by Britain’s central bank, the Bank of England, freezing their assets.

Seven of the nine come from east London while two are from High Wycombe, in the commuter belt northwest of the British capital.

The charges came shortly after the woman charged, Cossar Ali, launched a legal bid at London’s High Court to have her detention ruled unlawful.

Shortly after the pre-dawn raids on August 10, one senior Metropolitan Police officer described the alleged plot as an attempt to “commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.

In response, Britain raised its threat level from terrorism to “critical” — the highest — for the first time, and imposed unprecedented security measures at airports which resulted in hundreds of cancelled and delayed flights.

In July last year, 52 commuters were killed when four British Muslims carried out suicide bomb attacks on three rush-hour London underground trains and a double-decker bus, in the nation’s worst-ever brush with terrorism.

Mr Clarke told reporters: “The enormity of the alleged plot will be matched only by our determination to follow every lead and line of inquiry.

“I would like to reassure the public that we are doing everything we can to keep you safe — for you to live your lives without being in constant fear,” he said.

“However, we must be realistic. The threat from terrorism is real. It is here, it is deadly and it is enduring.” —AFP