PLOT TO KILL BRITISH PM

2 charged with planning to launch bomb attack in Downing Street, stab May

LONDON

TWO men have been charged with a plot to kill British Prime Minister Theresa May, British media reported. Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, and Mohammed Aqib Imran, 21, planned to blow up security barriers outside May’s Downing Street office and then stab the British leader to death, the reports said.

At a court hearing at the Westminster magistrate’s court here yesterday, the duo gave no indication as to their plea so a not guilty plea was entered on their behalf. There was no application for bail. The men will appear at the Old Bailey central criminal court here on Dec 20.

The reports came a day after Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Parliament that 22 Islamist terror plots had been thwarted since the killing of a British soldier here by two extremists in 2013.

Nine of the plots have been uncovered following an attack outside the British Parliament in March in which five people were killed, Rudd said.

“The United Kingdom is facing an intense threat from terrorism, one which is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we have not seen before,” the city’s Metropolitan Police said on Tuesday.

The police said there were 500 counterterrorism investigations involving 3,000 people and more than 20,000 other people had been investigated.

Britain has seen five terror attacks this year, which killed 36 people and injured more than 200 others. Four of them were claimed by the Islamic State group.

Three of the perpetrators were known to security services, according to an internal review which said opportunities to stop the Manchester Arena bombing attack were missed by security services.