Teen terrorist who plotted to bomb an Elton John concert on the anniversary of 9/11 is jailed for life

TEENAGE terrorist Haroon Syed has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years and six months.

He was caged at the Old Bailey for plotting to bomb an Elton John concert on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

He plotted to attack the concert where 50,000 people would attend in Hyde Park, with a nail bomb.

The 19-year-old also researched London locations to target to mark the anniversary of the Twin Towers attack on New York - including Oxford Street, Buckingham Palace and military bases around the capital.

He tried to take out a loan, buy machine guns, suicide vests, hand guns and even attempted to contact a bombmaker to build a device loaded with nails.

But he was snared by the British security services who spoke to him online , using the pseudonym Abu Yusuf, and who Syed told of his plans.

When police arrested Syed at his family home in Hounslow, west London, on September 8 last year and demanded his PIN code, he said: "Yeah, ISIS. Do you like that?"

Syed had a huge stash of ISIS related material and searches on his phone.

He admitted preparing for acts of terrorism between April 12 and September 9 last year when he appeared at the Old Bailey in April.

His older brother, Nadir Syed, was jailed in June last year for planning a beheading on Remembrance Sunday in 2014.

Both brothers went to West Thames College where Haroon studied IT between September 2014 and June 2015.

His tutor found he had been researching guns and he began to use the name 'Abu Hudaifah'.

He contacted the undercover officer in April last year using Threema - a secure messaging service, before his plans were rumbled.

Syed appeared in the dock today for his sentencing hearing wearing a grey tracksuit top, jeans and a black Muslim cap.

Duncan Penny QC, prosecuting, said: "Between April and September of last year, the defendant engaged in planning a terrorist attack on the people of the United Kingdom.

"He conducted research and tried to source weapons with the view to using those weapons in the attack.

"By April of 2016 he was expressing support for Islamic State."

He met with the undercover officer on May 29 in a Costa Coffee in the Queensmere Shopping Centre, Slough, Berks, and Syed spoke about wanting to make bombs.

He applied for a series of loans to apparently buy the weapons, but they were declined.

Mitigating, Mark Summers QC said it was a "crude, ill-thought-out" plan made at the behest of others.

The court heard Syed had fallen under the influence of members of Al-Muhajiroun (ALM), the banned group linked to jailed preacher Anjem Choudary.

Despite the risk around the time of his brother's arrest, Syed, slipped through the net of the Prevent anti-radicalisation team although his passport was seized in 2015.

Home Office approved de-radicalisation expert and Bradford imam Alyas Karmani told the court there should have been earlier intervention in his case.

Mr Summers added that Syed now publicly rejected his past beliefs and condemned the recent bomb attack at the Ariana Grande pop concert in Manchester.

But Judge Michael Topolski QC said the risk Syed posed warranted a discretionary life sentence and ordered him to serve a minimum of 16 and a half years.

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