A British teacher was on Friday found guilty of trying to create an army of children to launch several terror attacks across London.
Umar Haque reportedly showed his wards violent videos that contained scenes of people being decapitated and forced them to role-play attacking law enforcement officers.
"His plan was to create an army of children to assist with multiple terrorist attacks throughout London," Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, was quoted as saying by Reuters. "He tried and he did, we believe, radicalise vulnerable children from the ages of 11 to 14."
Haque had wanted to attack 30 potential targets, which includes Big Ben, the Tube, Westfield shopping centre, Heathrow Airport, courts and Shia Muslims. The 25-year-old is said to have been fascinated by the Westminster attack last March and wanted to recreate such an attack with the help of his brainwashed students.
Haque had no teaching qualifications, but he was employed as an administrator at the Lantern of Knowledge, a small private Islamic school in east London, and had attempted to groom nearly 110 children.
"He tried to prepare the children for martyrdom by making them role-play terrorist attacks. Part of that role-playing was re-enacting attacking police officers," Haydon said. "He had shown them graphic terrorist videos - beheading videos and frightening terrorist activities overseas. He described himself as a loyal follower to IS."
The children did not tell their parents about Haque as he had terrorized them saying he was part of the Islamic State and they would suffer the same fate as those in the videos.
"Umar has been teaching us how to fight, do push-ups, given strength and within six years he was planning to do a big attack on London," one of the boys told police, reported Independent.
"He wants a group of 300 men. He's training us now so by the time I'm in Year 10 we will be physically strong enough to fight.
"Umar, apparently, he told us boys he is part of Islamic State and Islamic State ordered him to do a big attack in London. We took an oath like we would not tell our parents. If we did not promise, we would go down a group.”
