Three British men have been found guilty of plotting to blow up seven airplanes flying from the United Kingdom to North American by detonating liquid explosives disguised as fizzy drinks smuggled aboard the airliners.

On September 7, 2009, Abdullah Ahmed Ali, 28, Assad Sarwar, 29, and Tanvir Hussain, 28, were found guilty in a London court of conspiring to murder by detonating improvised explosive devices on board transatlantic passenger aircraft. The men were arrested and charged with five other men in August 2006.

The men, who intended to assemble the bombs in the airplane bathrooms using hydrogen peroxide-based explosives injected into soda bottles, planned to detonate the explosives midair using battery-operated devices, such as MP3 players, digital camera flashes or cell phones, according to media reports. In court, the men claimed they were not planning a terrorist attack but rather a "political stunt" involving minor explosions in garbage cans outside airline offices in order to frighten people at Heathrow airport.

Documents found at the plotters' home showed that the suspects, mostly British nationals of Pakistani descent, had identified seven flights scheduled to take off within hours of each other from London's Heathrow airport to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal as their targets. Evidence at the trial showed they had planned to detonate the bombs simultaneously when the airplanes were over the Atlantic Ocean.

A week before their arrests, a surveillance camera reportedly recorded Ali and Hussain drilling a hole through the bottom of a soft-drink bottle, a tactic apparently employed to empty and replace the bottle's contents without breaking its seal.

In another recording, Umar Islam, 31, allegedly said, "Martyrdom operations upon martyrdom operations will keep on raining on these kuffar [nonbelievers]." The jury could not reach a verdict on the aircraft-related charges against Islam, who was found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.

Three other defendants – Arafat Khan, 28, Ibrahim Savant, 28, and Waheed Zaman, 25 – were acquitted of conspiracy to blow up airplanes, though the jury remained deadlocked on whether or not the three men were guilty of conspiracy to murder. An eighth suspect, Donald Stewart-Whyte, 23, who reportedly converted to Islam four months before his arrest, was cleared of all charges.

In one discussion recorded a day before the arrests, one of the defendants reportedly admitted he was seeking revenge for American foreign policies, "their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews." The men were also recorded discussing ways to recruit 19 bombers, presumably to emulate the 19 hijackers involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks, and reportedly planned to take their children with them on the flights to relieve suspicion.

Authorities found a "martyrdom video" in which Hussain reportedly expressed regret that, following the planned attacks, he "can't come back and do this again and again until, you know, people come to their senses and realize…don't mess with the Muslims." In his own suicide video, Ali criticized the West for interfering in Muslim lands, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and warned that the attacks would "teach them a lesson they will never forget."  

A search of Sarwar's home following the arrests reportedly provided additional suicide videos as well as computer memory sticks with information about alternative targets, including nuclear power stations, oil and gas terminals, and skyscrapers in east London.

According to media reports, Ali, the apparent ringleader of the group, was involved with Al Muhajiroun, a now-disbanded radical Islamic group that supported terrorism and the imposition of Islamic hegemony worldwide. Ali, along with Sarwar and Zaman, was also involved with Tablighi Jamaat, a strict Islamic movement that has been labeled by the FBI as a "recruiting ground for Al Qaeda." Tablighi operates from several mosques in the U.K., including one frequented by a number of the defendants. Other terrorists have also followed Tablighi Jamaat, including Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber;" Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen sentenced to more than 17 years in prison for conspiracy to provide and providing material support to terrorists; and the Lackawanna Six, a group of six Yemeni-Americans who were convicted of providing material support to Al Qaeda.

Ali, Sarwar and Hussain pleaded guilty in September 2008 to conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to create a public nuisance, although the jury could not reach a verdict on whether they targeted airplanes. The jury failed to reach verdicts against the other defendants, who had also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.  

Prosecutors introduced new evidence at the retrial, including e-mails circulated among Ali, Sarwar, Hussain and a Pakistan-based handler, later identified by authorities as Rashid Rauf. These e-mails, which were not used in the previous trial due to laws prohibiting the use of intercepted telephone conversations and other electronic intercepts in British courts, were obtained from the records of Internet providers in the U.S., according to British officials.

In an attempt to throw off surveillance agents, the men reportedly used code words in their e-mails to Rauf, referring to hydrogen peroxide as "after-shave," the airlines as "bus services," and a trial run as a "rehearsal" at a "rapping contest."

Rauf, who was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006, escaped from custody a year later, shortly before his scheduled extradition to Britain. He was purportedly killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan in November 2008, though his family maintains he is still alive.  

The men were also reportedly directed by Al Qaeda operative Abu Ubaida al-Masri, an explosives expert who allegedly helped mastermind the July 2005 terrorist attacks on London's transport system. Al-Masri, who taught classes in Pakistan on building hydrogen peroxide bombs, died in 2008 of natural causes.