Omar Khyam boasted of working for Abdul Hadi, said to be number three in al Qaida.

But his journey into the confidence of the Islamic terrorist hierarchy began in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, perhaps best known for its airport.

Khyam went to the mosque there and was soon meeting a group of radicals in a nearby hall in Leagrave Road.

He soon came under the influence of someone referred to as Q, or Mohammed Qayum Khan.

Khan is believed to have been sending young men to Pakistan with money and equipment for Afghan refugees.

Khan, whose home was searched but who was never arrested, was spotted having a midnight meeting with Khyam.

Khyam became one of the young men used as couriers for aid and supplies.

Fellow fertiliser conspirator Salahuddin Amin, who called himself Khaled, had been raising money in Luton and moved to Pakistan permanently. He was the link for Britons ferrying supplies there.

Amin was said to have connections with al Qaida locally and thought he was above detention because of his family connections with the Pakistan military.

Q, who was coded as Bashful Dwarf by MI5 surveillance officers, was Khyam's emir, or commander, the court was told.

Each emir was said to have five people under him. Khyam told another conspirator that they must always follow orders from their emir.

In Pakistan, Khyam, who called himself Ausman to hide his identity, and Amin were answerable to an Arab called Abu Munthir, who was Hadi's deputy.

He had met Munthir when he visited the mosque in Luton.

It was to Munthir that Amin went when Khyam emailed him for the bomb recipe, which he had forgotten from training.

Amin told British police: "He told me that he has 600kg of ammonium nitrate on him. So, he asked me what does he mix with that to make explosives.

"I told him that you know, you been, you learned it and why are you asking me if you already learned it and why are you trying to ask me about this?

"And he goes 'I forgot already' you know. Basically, that training that he done was no good to him."

In Pakistan in the summer of 2003, talk turned to potential targets in the UK after volunteers who wanted to fight in Afghanistan were told they would be of more use at home.

Khyam returned from a 10-day trip to see Abu Munthir in a northern tribal area near Kohat.

Khyam wanted to discuss "what they were planning in the UK", according to supergrass Mohammed Junaid Babar.

After the meeting, Khyam returned and said Abu Munthir wanted to see "everyone involved" in the plot.

In January 2004, Babar travelled to the UK where he attended various meetings with some of the conspirators and other associates.

Babar said "differences" had developed between "the Crawley lot" and those from east London.

He said he was the only one to have met Hadi and he was there to "clear everything up".

But he was soon on a plane back to the United States, apparently disillusioned with his British comrades.