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A PhD engineering student is facing prison after being convicted of building a kamikaze drone for the Islamic State terror group.

Mohamad Al-Bared, 26, whose parents are both doctors, copied the design of a Tomahawk missile to build the device, which was capable of delivering a bomb or chemical weapon over a distance of five miles. The mechanical engineering graduate made the wings on a 3D printer and sent weekly updates to IS so his designs could be replicated.

The terror group was so impressed by the student’s work that it shared one of his videos in a propaganda film on the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

Police who raided Al-Bared’s family home in Coventry in January found the drone in his bedroom along with a completed application form for IS membership, in which he had stated he had a master’s degree in electronic engineering.

He was yesterday found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism by researching and developing an unmanned aerial vehicle, sharing technical design details and registering a UK company as false cover for travel abroad to join Islamic State.

Mohamad Al-Barad, 26, sent weekly updates to IS while building an aerial device to carry missiles

The engineering student was found guilty yesterday of preparing an act of terrorism and was told to expect a lengthy jail sentence

A judge told him to expect a lengthy jail term when he returns to Birmingham Crown Court for sentencing in November.

Al-Bared, who has a mechanical engineering degree from Coventry University, a master’s from Warwick University and was studying for a PhD at Birmingham University, told his IS contacts in January that he wanted to leave Britain and join them.

He registered a fake food import-export firm with Companies House as cover for the trip and was advised by the terrorist group to travel to Turkey then on to Nigeria.

Al-Bared, a keen gardener who grew fruit and vegetables in an allotment, had a document called ‘Science of explosives’ with handwritten notes on the properties of phosgene, Child Porn Fisting a poisonous gas used during the First World War, along with documents on sarin gas and the poison ricin. 

The student’s parents were both in court as the unanimous guilty verdict was returned. Al-Bared’s mother broke down in tears and had to be helped from the courtroom.

The device was built to copy the design of a Tomahawk missile, which can carry bombs over a five mile distance

Al-Bared used a 3D printer to build the wings for the unmanned aerial device at his home in Coventry

The terror group was so impressed by the student’s work that it shared one of his videos in a propaganda film on the encrypted messaging app Telegram

Judge Paul Farrer KC told Al-Bared: ‘You have been convicted of an offence of the utmost gravity. A lengthy prison sentence in the inevitable consequence of it but the length and nature of the sentence is a matter for careful consideration.

‘The court will benefit from a risk assessment from the probation service in relation to dangerousness.’

Al-Bared’s parents were born in Syria but moved to study medicine in Romania, where they had their three children and remained for 20 years. The family settled in Britain in 2014.

Det Chief Supt Mark Payne, head of Counter-Terrorism Policing West Midlands, said Al-Bared was a ‘really, really dangerous individual who was quite some way towards helping to instigate an attack by IS’.

‘Anybody who has the qualifications and the knowledge and the skills that he has, that gives them a dimension that they don’t seem currently to possess,’ he added.

‘He’s a prized asset and somebody who, I’m sure, would be very valuable to them.’

Chemical WeaponsBirminghamISIS