UK schoolboys plot beheadings, blowing up Buckingham Palace

TWO 15-year-old schoolboys were caught plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace after one of their mothers became suspicious and called the police.

The youngsters had been amassing chemicals, pipes and fuses to make viable devices based on instructions in the Anarchist Cookbook, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

They wanted to attack a series of venues but were arrested when the mother found suspicious powder in her son’s bedroom and called police.

In online conversations, the boys discussed going on a drug-fuelled rampage, killing families in their homes, making a beheading video and ending their days as wanted men.

A mobile phone seized from one of them contained messages, chat and links relating to making explosives, Molotov cocktails, bottle bombs, nail bombs, acetone peroxide, the uses of chlorine and the Taliban.

Other material showed references to a hatred of Jews and black people.

Police found them in possession of chemicals, fuses and pipes.

Although the materials had not been made into bombs, army experts said they could have been used for viable improvised explosive devices.

The two, now 16, were sent to youth custody for 12 months after admitting to conspiracy to make an explosive substance for unlawful purpose.

Prosecutor Nick Dry said one of the accused had been confronted by his parents last year after they became concerned about him.

“They had noticed a change in him over the past year or so when he had started to show them photographs of drugs, money and weapons, tell sick jokes about 9/11 and, latterly, tell them that he was making a bomb.

“Skype communications . . . confirms they were doing just that.

“They were looking to sell drugs in order to fund the purchase of materials to make pipe bombs and a firearm.

“Potential targets discussed included a local public school, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace and a random shopping centre,” Dry said.