Plot to kill UK Prime minister thwarted

LONDON — Counterterrorism officers thwarted a terrorist attack targeting the British prime minister, Theresa May, prosecutors said when two suspects in their early 20s appeared in court on Wednesday.

Word of the planned attack coincided with what the authorities have depicted as mounting concern about the intensity, scale and pace of conspiracies by violent extremists.

There have been five terrorist attacks in Britain this year alone, killing dozens of people in total. An official report on Tuesday said the worst of those assaults — at a concert by the pop star Ariana Grande in Manchester in May — might have been averted “had the cards fallen differently.”

The planned attack on May was to begin with a bombing of the security gates that protect 10 Downing Street — the home and office of British prime ministers — as a prelude to an attempt to stab her to death, prosecutors said.

Two suspects — Naa’imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, and Mohammed Aqib Imran, 21 — were arrested Nov. 28. Rahman, a resident of north London, is accused of planning the bombing and knife attack. Imran, from Birmingham in the English Midlands, is accused of preparing acts of terrorism by traveling to Libya to join the Islamic State militant group.

Mark Carroll, a prosecutor, told the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday that Rahman had planned to set off explosives at the gates of 10 Downing Street. In the ensuing chaos, he hoped to gain access to May’s office and stage a “secondary attack” using “a suicide vest, pepper spray and a knife.” His purpose was to “attack, kill and cause explosions.”

Counterterrorism specialists have said one source of concern is that Islamic State combatants may be returning to Britain after military defeats in Iraq and Syria. Rudd said on Tuesday that Britain’s security services were embroiled in more than 500 investigations involving more than 3,000 people.