Isil follower ‘plotted Lee Rigby-style killing of US airman’
Delivery driver scouted out bases for potential victim, court is told
A DELIVERY driver planned to carry out a knife and bomb attack on an American serviceman in the UK, a court has heard.
Junead Ahmed Khan, 24, is believed to have secretly monitored the US air bases at RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath, both in Suffolk, while at work.
Khan, who was apparently inspired by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil), planned to run over an airman or crash into his vehicle before attacking him with a knife and detonating a suicide vest, it is alleged.
The plot bore striking similarities to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby outside his south London barracks in May 2013.
Khan, from Luton, allegedly wanted to buy the same kind of combat knife used by the British Isil killer known as Jihadi John.
He is also accused of planning to travel to Syria to join the terrorist group along with his uncle, Shazib Ahmed Khan, 22, also from Luton. The pair were arrested last week.
Junead Khan is alleged to have been at an “advanced stage” in his plan.
He was arrested at work at Alliance Healthcare in Letchworth, Herts, where he was a contracted driver. He appeared before Westminster magistrates charged with planning a terrorist attack. He is also facing separate terrorism charges, along with Shazib Khan, who also appeared in court, of planning to travel to Syria to join Isil.
Mark Dawson, prosecuting, said: “Shazib Khan is charged under section 75 of the Terrorism Act preparing for travel to Syria to join Islamic State, possibly for martyrdom purposes.
“In relation to Junead Khan, the charge is the same, potentially not for martyrdom purposes.”
On the separate charge against Junead Khan, Mr Dawson said: “He was planning a car accident-style attack to run over a serviceman and use a knife to kill that serviceman, and to do so, certainly had in mind the wearing of a suicide vest.” Both men appeared at the court in grey tracksuits.
The two men were not asked to enter pleas, but Mr Dawson said that not guilty pleas were indicated. Judge Howard Riddle ordered the pair to appear at the Old Bailey on August 18 and they were remanded in custody.
A young jihadist who once dreamt of becoming Britain’s first Asian prime minister before later joining Isil has reportedly been killed in a drone strike.
Reyaad Khan, 21, from Cardiff, was one of the first Britons to appear in an Isil propaganda video last year.
Other fighters with the terror group reported on Twitter that he had been killed in a strike in Raqqa, Syria, possibly on the 10th anniversary of the July 7 terrorist attacks on London. His father Nazim Khan, 46, said he had had no contact to tell him his son was dead.