Seven Britons accused of planning bomb attacks discussed blowing up one of the country's largest shopping centres and "the biggest nightclub in London", a court heard on today.
Police surveillance officers overheard some of the suspects praising the Madrid bombings of March 2004, talking about detonators and considering attacks on Britain's gas, electricity or water supplies, prosecution lawyer David Waters said.
London's Old Bailey heard allegations that Pakistani militants had tried to buy a "dirty" radiological bomb from the Russian mafia in a plot that never came to fruition.
Mr Waters told the court that one suspect, Waheed Mahmood, suggested a blast at the Bluewater shopping center in Kent, just outside London, on a Saturday when it would be full of shoppers.
Mahmood, he added, was caught by covert listening devices in a fellow suspect's car on March 19, 2004, saying: "Is it worth getting all the brothers together tonight and asking who would be ready to go?"
Mahmood was also said to have raised the possibility of "a little explosion at Bluewater -- tomorrow if you want".
"I don't know how big it would be, we haven't tested it, but we could tomorrow - do one tomorrow."
The prosecution said Mahmood had been overheard saying of the Madrid bombings: "Spain was a beautiful job weren't it, absolutely beautiful man, so much impact."
The suspects, Anthony Garcia, Jawad Akbar, Omar Khyam, his brother Shujah Mahmood, Waheed Mahmood, Nabeel Hussain, and Salahuddin Amin, are accused of conspiring with Canadian Mohammed Momin Khawaja to cause an explosion "likely to endanger life".