‘ISIS on terror tour of UK’: Suspect ‘scouted out targets’ posing as tourist

A TERROR suspect and Afghan refugee scouted out some of the UK’s most famous landmarks as potential targets on a tour of Britain covered up as a holiday, police fear.

Anti-terror experts in Italy are quizzing Hakim Nasiri after he was arrested for being part of a suspected Islamic State (ISIS) terror cell plotting attacks in Britain.

Italian police fear he is part of a five-man terror cell targeting UK hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions.

Among images found on Nasiri’s phone was a picture of him grinning with an M16 assault rifle in the stock room of a British supermarket, next to packed shelves with trollies in the background.

Now Express.co.uk has uncovered whole photograph albums of the 24-year-old suspect at UK attractions, raising fears he was doing a recce of hotspots.

Nasiri was granted asylum in Italy in 2013 after arriving in the country as a refugee from Afghanistan.

Taking advantage of Europe’s open borders, he moved freely between London, Paris and Rome an is understood to have been renting a house in Birmingham where claimed he had been working at a fast food outlet. 

Posted in a photograph album on Facebook called “With my friends come to London Bridge” Nasiri can be seen posing next to London’s Shard and mingling with tourists at Buckingham Palace.

There is also a snap of him sitting on a train as it passes through Orpington in Kent which can clearly be seen through the window.

Anti-terror chiefs in Italy have been monitoring Nasiri’s movements as he and others travelled on budget airlines paying cash as they went.

Police swooped and arrested Nasiri in a hostel in Bari – which is in southern Italy – on suspicion of international terrorism.

Fellow Afghan, 29-year-old Gulistan Ahmadzai, was also picked up at a similar hostel in Foggia, while Zulfiqar Amjad, a 24-year-old Pakistani, was arrested in Milan. Both men are suspected of operating a smuggling route for migrants and terrorists.

Surgul Ahmadzai, who is alleged to have hunted for targets in London, and fellow jihadi suspect, Qari Khesta Mir Ahmadzai, 30, are now believed to be on the run.

Italian police are concerned the group is targeting the UK’s hotels, restaurants and possibly the Thames cable car.

Among the potential targets found on their phones were hotels in London’s Docklands.

Pictures of a footbridge to Canary Wharf and the Premier Inn outside Westfield in Stratford were also discovered. The cell was allegedly planning attacks in France, Italy and Belgium as well as on Rome’s Colosseum.

Italian prosecutors said they had discovered material showing a “hatred of the West” and a “checklist of Western symbols to destroy”.

Surgal’s phone contained pictures of alleged targets in London, Rome and Bari.