Iraqi Bilal Abdulla, 28, and Jordanian Mohammed Asha, 29, travelled to Britain to further their careers in medicine at university and NHS hospitals.

But prosecutors said the pair were secretly members of an Islamic terrorist cell who wanted to plunge the nation back into the terror of July 2005.

Woolwich Crown Court was told the men turned their attention to planning a series of devastating car bombs in busy urban centres.

They used their intelligence and academic knowledge to conceal their tracks as they spent six months buying vehicles, renting a property and preparing the bombs.

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC said the men had access to extra bomb materials, including mobile phone detonators, and at least two more vehicles for further attacks.

He said only "good fortune" saved hundreds of late-night revellers when two Mercedes cars packed full of fuel, gas canisters and nails were left in London's West End on June 29 last year.

The cars failed to detonate leaving Abdulla, and a third conspirator Kafeel Ahmed, 28, on the run with the police and security services close behind.

The next day the two men drove a four-wheel drive, also prepared as an improvised bomb, into the main terminal building at Glasgow Airport on its busiest day of the year.

The explosive materials inside the green Jeep Cherokee also failed to detonate, leaving Ahmed with fatal burns.

Mr Laidlaw said: "Their plan was to carry out a series of attacks on the public using bombs concealed in vehicles.

"No warnings were to be given and the cars were to be positioned in busy urban areas.

"In short, these men were intent on committing murder on an indiscriminate and a wholesale scale.

"In addition to the killing of the innocent, the objective of course was to seize public attention both here in this country and internationally."

Abdulla, a junior house doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley, was described as a central player in the conspiracy.

Prosecutors said he was "determined on committing murder" as he helped Ahmed to buy materials for the improvised bombs from DiY stores.

Mr Laidlaw said Asha, a neurologist at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, was a behind-the-scenes mastermind.

Abdulla contacted him at every key stage of his preparations.

Mr Laidlaw said the men shared extremist ideologies and were motivated by what they saw as the persecution of Muslims in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan.

Abdulla and Ahmed rented a house with a garage in a quiet residential suburb near Paisley, on the outskirts of Glasgow, to use as a bomb factory.

They travelled in a hire car to London's West End and the area around the Old Bailey during a reconnaissance trip in May last year, the court heard.

On June 29 Abdulla and Ahmed drove the two Mercedes car bombs, bought second-hand for £1,600 from private owners, from Glasgow to London's West End.

One vehicle was left outside the busy Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus, with a second at a nearby bus stop in Cockspur Street.

The second car may have been deliberately placed in the path of those evacuated from the first blast, the court heard.

CCTV footage from inside the nightclub shown to the court reveal dozens of customers milling around as the Mercedes was parked outside in the background.

But the terrorists' plans began to unravel when the improvised bombs failed to detonate.

Prosecutors said two hand-made mobile phone triggers left in each vehicle did not work, despite repeated attempts.

This unexpected failure led to a dramatic change in tactics as Abdulla and Ahmed travelled to Glasgow and prepared for the airport suicide attack.

Mr Laidlaw said there was no remote detonation device this time. "For the attack in Scotland, the driver and the passenger, by using petrol bombs and by spraying petrol around, were going to try and blow the car up with themselves inside. The car was a mobile incendiary bomb.

Ahmed aimed the Jeep at the airport's main terminal doors but became stuck in the entrance, the court heard.

Abdulla, of Houston, Glasgow, and Asha, of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, deny the offences. The case continues.