LONDON, April 30: British police and security services foiled what they believe was an Al Qaeda plot to down a passenger jet with a missile less than six months after the 2005 London bombings, police sources said Monday.

Kazi Rahman, 29, was jailed for nine years last year after admitting a charge of trying to purchase terrorist weaponry. He had links to a terrorist cell convicted on Monday of plotting to use fertiliser bombs across Britain.

Details of Rahman's case were subject to a strict contempt of court order, which meant the police information could not be reported until after a verdict on the fertiliser bomb plot trial had been returned.

Rahman was arrested in a sting operation on Nov 29, 2005 trying to buy three Uzi submachine guns, silencers and 3,000 rounds of ammunition at a motorway service station near London.

The British Muslim had been in negotiations to buy even more potentially deadly weapons -- surface to air missiles and rocket-propelled grenades -- for use against British targets, the police sources said.

He had indicated to an undercover intelligence agent he thought was a fixer that he “might be able to raise 65,000 pounds to buy even more dangerous weaponry” for “bringing down aircraft”, London's Central Criminal Court heard.

Plans for an electricity sub-station were also found at his home, along with literature about the September 11 “martyrs” and guerilla warfare.

Rahman, a plumber, was a contact of an American called Mohammed Junaid Babar, the “supergrass” in the fertiliser bomb trial, and was allegedly a recruiter in Pakistan for the hardline Taliban regime in Afghanistan.—AFP