Baghdad’s top counter-terror officer says Britain-based jihadis were planning at carry out atrocity

A planned terror attack on UK soil has been uncovered by international intelligence services.

British-based Islamic State terrorists have been making plans for an atrocity on a major public gathering, according to Iraq’s chief counter terror officer General Abdul Wahab al-Saadi.

He has been leading his troops as they prepare for their next SAS-style advance on the terror group, which also goes by the name of Daesh, The Mirror reports.

Dubbed the Golden Division, they discovered the plot after killing a cell of militants in a desert hideout just days ago.

The general said: ‘We discovered that the UK is the next target outside Iraq.

Dubbed the Golden Division, Iraq’s Counter Terror Service discovered the international plot after killing a cell of militants in a desert hideout just days ago

Iraqi Federal police members take cover as smoke billows from a big explosion during fighting between Iraqi troops and fighters of the Islamic State

‘In the past few weeks we launched major operations against Daesh or Islamic State and killed large numbers of terrorists, in one raid there were about five of them, all quite senior.

‘I can tell you that from the information we found at the site of one of our recent raids the next intended terror attack will be in the United Kingdom.’

General al-Saadi described members of the cell as British nationals and added the material is now in the hands of Britain’s secret services.

He added: ‘We do have evidence that terrorists here are in contact with extremists in the United Kingdom, and that they are plotting.

‘I cannot tell what form the attack they want to launch would take as it can be a car, a knife, a gun, a bomb.’

The general added that the cell is looking to maximise their attack ‘in a public’ and that the group ‘four priority’ countries in Europe are the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.

The general spoke as his troops practiced manoeuvers in 46C heat at Baghdad Airport.

Exercises included soldiers storming a mock hideout, using helicopters and practicing with two dozen armoured cars and machine guns.

Iraqi counter-terrorism teams conduct a drill including scenarios of hostage rescue

Islamic State, formed out of the remnants of al-Quaeda, has claimed thousands of lives including dozens of UK citizens.

Iraq is eager to announce it has routed IS from within its borders, and is throwing resources at remaining factions of the terror group.

On Sunday, one Iraqi soldier was killed and an officer wounded during a counter-terrorism raid that also killed three suspected Islamic State group fighters, Baghdad’s security forces said.

The military operation in Kirkuk province, north of the Iraqi capital, targeted ‘three figures of the terrorist group Daesh in the Turkelan region,’ the security forces said in a statement, using the Arab acronym for IS jihadists.

After the suspected IS members were identified, Iraqi troops approached and a clash erupted, added the statement late Sunday.

The jihadists ‘were surrounded and killed, the explosive belts they were wearing were detonated’, it said.

IS jihadists seized swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, declaring a ‘caliphate’ which they ruled with brutality before their defeat in late 2017 by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition.

Despite the setbacks, the extremist group can still call on an underground network of fighters to carry out attacks on both sides of the porous border, the United Nations says