LONDON, Jan 15: An `extremist Muslim cell’ tried to carry out suicide bombings on London’s transport system just two weeks after the July 7, 2005, attacks that killed 52 people, a prosecutor said on Monday .

The plot was not a hastily arranged copycat scheme but a long-planned operation, chief prosecutor Nigel Sweeney said as six British men went on trial over the failed attacks of July 21, 2005.

He said the attackers aimed to cause maximum injury by detonating home-made bombs packed with metal, which they carried in rucksacks onto the public transport system.

“It was simply the good fortune of the travelling public that they were spared,” Mr Sweeney told the court.

The targets -- three underground trains and a bus -- echoed those in the deadly attacks in London two weeks earlier.

The failed second set of attacks caused panic and triggered a huge manhunt, leaving Londoners unclear if they were a botched and quickly assembled attempt to imitate the original carnage.

But Mr Sweeney told the high-security Woolwich Crown Court: “The evidence in this case shows that this conspiracy had been in existence long before the events of July 7.”

The six men are all originally from Africa and in their 20s.

Mr Sweeney said the ninth-floor flat of defendant Yassin Hassin Omar in north London was the bomb-making factory. The detonator was triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and the main charge was held in buckets surrounded by screws, tacks, washers and nuts.

“The purpose is, of course, to increase fragmentation when the bomb explodes and maximise the possibility of injury, fatal or otherwise, to those in the vicinity,” Sweeney told the court.

Sweeney said the 5-kg bombs were made of hydrogen peroxide, nail varnish and flour used to make chapatis (unleavened bread). They were carried in rucksacks with wires connected to the detonators hidden under clothing. He said that between May 9 and July 5, the group bought 442 litres of hydrogen peroxide.—Reuters