Fairy light bomb Isis radical jailed for life
AN ISIS fanatic who tried to make a bomb from fairy lights has been jailed for life.
Zahid Hussain considered targeting railway lines after viewing hundreds of IS images of the war in Syria.
His trial was told he wrongly believed his non-viable pressure cooker “bomb” – packed with 1.6kg of shrapnel – could cause devastation.
Sentencing the “dangerous” 29-year-old to a minimum term of 15 years at Winchester Crown Court yesterday, Mr Justice Sweeney told Hussain it was clear he had been “strongly committed” to carrying out multiple bombings.
Hussain used a bedroom in his parents’ house as his “base of operations and improvised laboratory” where he researched and tried to assemble explosives.
After his arrest in August 2015, searches uncovered evidence he had carried out reconnaissance of woods near the house in Alum Rock, Birmingham, including the main London rail line.
Books on guerrilla warfare were also discovered, including one which talked of mounting attacks on railways.
The judge said: “You were clearly deeply radicalised and, over a period of at least nine months, were strongly committed to what you were doing.”
Jailing Hussain, he added: “You are a dangerous offender and this is an appropriate case in which to impose a sentence of life imprisonment.”