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Six men from the West Midlands have been jailed for up to 19-and-a-half years each for planning to bomb an English Defence League rally.

Omar Khan, Jewel Uddin, Mohammed Hasseen, Mohammed Saud, Zohaib Ahmed and Anzal Hussain had all admitted terrorism offences in April.

Five of the men took a bomb, knives and sawn-off shotguns to the rally.

But the plotters arrived after the EDL event - held last June in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire - had ended.

They were caught by chance after their car was stopped and found to have no insurance.

At the Old Bailey, Khan, Uddin and Ahmed were sentenced to 19-and-a-half years in jail, with a five-year extension on licence.

Hasseen, Hussain and Saud were jailed for 18 years and nine months, with a five-year extension on licence.

Extended sentences, introduced in England and Wales last year, mean offenders serve at least two thirds of their main sentence in custody. After release, they are on licence in the community for the rest of their sentence plus the extension part.

Sentencing the men, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC said the explosive device had been a "horrible weapon" that would have caused serious if not fatal injuries.

He said it had not been an amateurish attempt but wide-ranging and determined.

Judge Hilliard told the men: "How was it that you became involved in a crime of this gravity? At least part of the answer to that question must come in the tide of apparently freely available extremist material in which most of you had immersed yourselves."

The judge said the extremist material was "not difficult either to obtain or share".

"In this case, it can only have served to reinforce the defendants' resolve to behave in the hideous way that was planned," he said.

EDL leader Tommy Robinson and his deputy Kevin Carroll called out "God save the Queen" from the public gallery as sentence was passed.

Sobs could be heard from other observers, and shouts of " Allahu Akbar" (God is Great in Arabic).

All of the men except Hasseen travelled to Dewsbury where an EDL rally was taking place on 30 June last year.

The gang's plan only failed because the event finished earlier than expected - they arrived at around 4pm when it had finished shortly after 2pm.

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A former CIA technical worker has been identified by the UK's Guardian newspaper as the source of leaks about US surveillance programmes.

Edward Snowden, 29, is described by the paper as an ex-CIA technical assistant, currently employed by defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

The Guardian said his identity was being revealed at his own request.

The recent revelations are that US agencies gathered millions of phone records and monitored internet data.

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said the matter had now been referred to the Department of Justice as a criminal matter.

The Guardian quotes Mr Snowden as saying he flew to Hong Kong on 20 May, where he holed himself up in a hotel.

He told the paper that the extent of US surveillance was "horrifying", adding: "We can plant bugs in machines. Once you go on the network, I can identify your machine. You will never be safe whatever protections you put in place."

He added: "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things… I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded."

Mr Snowden said he did not believe he had committed a crime: "We have seen enough criminality on the part of government. It is hypocritical to make this allegation against me."

Asked what he thought would happen to him, he replied: "Nothing good."

Mr Snowden said he accepted he could end up in jail. "If they want to get you, over time they will," he said.

He said he also feared the US authorities would "act aggressively against anyone who has known me. That keeps me up at night".

Mr Snowden said he had gone to Hong Kong because of its "strong tradition of free speech".

Hong Kong signed an extradition treaty with the US shortly before the territory returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

However, Beijing can block any extradition if it believes it affects national defence or foreign policy issues.

Mr Snowden has expressed an interest in seeking asylum in Iceland.

However, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post quoted Iceland's ambassador to China as saying that "according to Icelandic law a person can only submit such an application once he/she is in Iceland".

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