Big dummies.

Bombing (or trying to) innocent people is the ultimate act of cowardice. One of these guys was clutching the Koran to his chest as he got his verdict. I don't think Allah would be too willing to help you, buddy, but good luck with that.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British judge jailed four men for 40 years each on Wednesday for attempting to carry out suicide bombings on London's transport system in a plot he said had clearly been masterminded by al Qaeda.

Judge Adrian Fulford told the four he had no doubt their botched attempt to bomb three underground trains and a bus on July 21, 2005, two weeks after 52 people were killed in similar attacks, had been directed by Osama bin Laden's group.

The second wave of attacks only failed because, although the detonators fired, the bombs did not explode.

"This was a viable, indeed a very nearly successful, attempt at mass murder," Fulford told the court. "These were not truly isolated events but ... coordinated and connected in that I have no doubt they were part of an al Qaeda inspired and controlled sequence of attacks."

The men, Muktah Said Ibrahim, Yassin Hassan Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman, all Muslims of African origin, were found guilty on Monday of conspiracy to murder.

The men looked impassive as the sentences were handed down. As they left the courtroom, Osman clutched a Koran to his chest.

"At least 50 people would have died, hundreds would have been wounded, thousands would have had their lives permanently damaged, disfigured or otherwise," Fulford said. "The family and friends of the dead and the injured, the hundreds, indeed thousands, captured underground in terrifying circumstances -- the smoke, the screams of the wounded and the dying -- this each defendant knew."

All the men, who had come to Britain as refugees to escape war in their homelands, had claimed that the bombings were a hoax designed as a protest against the Iraq war. How about protesting the war you fleed your country for? Killing civilians is one sure way of getting people to rally behind the governments waging the war and making sure the troops NEVER leave Iraq.