Taliban filmed himself outside MI6 and parliament days before he planned terror attack

A Taliban-bomb maker carried out a ‘hostile surveillance’ around London before he was to carry out a knife attack outside Downing Street, a court heard.

Jurors were shown footage of Khalid Ali, 28, making his way around the capital before he was detained in Whitehall on April 27 last year – just four weeks after Khalid Masood launched a terror attack in Westminster.

Khalid Ali, 28, from Edmonton, North London had spent five years with the Taliban before returning to Britain with a ‘message’ for the country’s ‘decision-makers’.

The court heard that Ali had taken ‘hostile reconnaissance’ around Downing Street, New Scotland Yard, the Ministry of Defence, the MI6 building and the Cenotaph on March 18 and April 22 last year, the court heard.

He had taken a Tube on April 22 from near his home in Edmonton Green to Vauxhall underground station, before walking to Westminster and through the underpass under the Victoria Embankment, through crowds of smiling tourists.

Three days later, Ali allegedly bought a Cook’s Professional stainless steel knife and a Dura stainless steel chef’s pack of three knives, as well as a Dura 11ins stainless steel carving knife and sharpener.

Ali entered a shop and asked a worker if ‘they’ could trace an international mobile identity number on a mobile phone.

Jurors at the Old Bailey were also shown CCTV of Ali’s arrest while crowds of people milled around Parliament Square.

As officers moved in they shouted out to Ali: ‘Armed police. Armed police.’

The trained plumber put his hands in the air by his head and lowered himself to his knees then onto the ground.

Asked if he had anything on him that could harm a person, Ali said: ‘You’ll see.’

Two knives were retrieved from his jacket pockets and a third from the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms.

The prosecution alleges Ali was targeting MPs, police and members of the armed forces.

Early on April 27, his mother raised the alarm when she found knives in his bedroom at the family home in Edmonton, north London.

But he re-armed himself with more knives from Wilko before taking the Tube to Westminster, the court heard.

His mobile phone was later recovered from where he had dropped it in the River Thames in Westminster, the court heard.

Ali denies two charges of possessing explosives with intent abroad in 2012 and one charge of preparing terrorist acts in Britain.

Source: dailymail