Piers Arnold, reviewing lawyer of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division said: ?This was a case about nine young men who in October 2010 formed a group for the purpose of carrying out acts of terrorism. ?They are all aged between twenty and thirty years old and are all residents of the United Kingdom. Four of the men are from Stoke, three are from Cardiff and two from London. What they had in common was that they all held extreme fundamentalist religious beliefs and were committed to converting those beliefs into terrorist action. They met during November and December 2010 to discuss their plans. ?Four of the men, Mohammed Chowdhury and Shah Rahman from London, and Gurukanth Desai and Abdul Miah, two brothers from Cardiff, formed a plan to create and detonate a bomb in the London Stock Exchange. ?Three others, Mohammed Shahjahan, Usman Khan and Nazam Hussain, all from Stoke, decided on a longer term plan to fund and take part in terrorist training abroad with a view to carrying out terrorist acts in the future. ?Two other men, Omar Latif and Mohibur Rahman, were also involved in discussions with the group during the period in question. Latif accepted his part in preparing for acts of terrorism, though was not involved in either of the specific plots referred to. Rahman also played no part in these plots but accepted that he was in possession of documents for terrorist purposes. ?These men were motivated to act as they did in large part by extreme Jihadist propaganda circulated on the internet by organisations like Al-Qaeda in the hope that impressionable young men in the West will be inspired to carry out attacks in the places where they live. ?These nine men were not members of Al-Qaeda but they were clearly influenced by the message of that organisation and in particular by the teachings of the American born ideologue, Anwar Al-Awlaki, who died in a drone attack in the Yemen last year. ?Six of these men were found to be in possession of an Al-Qaeda publication called Inspire magazine. That magazine, to which Al-Awlaki was a key contributor, urged its readers to attack the Western countries by any means possible to cause death, fear and economic damage. It also contained practical instructions on how to make a bomb. This bomb recipe formed a central part of the defendants? discussions. ?All nine men were arrested in late December 2010. The CPS worked very closely with the police and by Boxing Day 2010, we were satisfied there was enough evidence to charge all nine with terrorist offences. ?The CPS and West Midlands Police worked hard together to present a strong prosecution case. Last week, shortly before their trial was about to begin, all nine pleaded guilty to these offences. They have today been sentenced to terms of imprisonment. ?I would like to thank the West Midlands Police for all their hard work and for an outstanding investigation. I would also like to thank all those who have assisted the prosecution team over the last year in bringing these men to justice.?