An IT graduate who wrote messages on an Islamic extremist website calling on Muslims to raise the knife of jihad and attack and kill British politicians who voted in favor of the Iraq war has been jailed for 12 years

Bilal Zaheer Ahmad, 24, posted the threats on the RevolutionMuslim.com website with a full list of all British politicians who had voted in the House of Commons in favor of the war and links providing personal contact details. He called on them to emulate Roshonara Choudhry, who had attempted to murder the Labor MP Stephen Timms with a knife at his East Ham constituency office, Bristol crown court heard. Ahmad, who worked for an insurance company in Telford, Shropshire, also posted a link to the Tesco website listing cheap knives, urging would-be fanatics to use them to carry out attacks. Jailing him for 12 years, with an additional five years' extended period on license, Justice Royce said: "You became a viper in our midst willing to go as far as possible to strike at the heart of our system." Ahmad, who holds British and Pakistani passports, had purported to be a British citizen, said Royce. "But what you stand for is totally alien to what we stand for in our country." He added that his views were corrosively dangerous. "It's important MPs can hold constituency surgeries without the threat of someone pulling out a knife and trying to kill them. You were intent on striking at the heart of our democracy and if our politicians are to be at risk from those like you, then the message must go out loud and clear that this country will not tolerate such threats to its democratic processes." Ahmad posted his threat the day after Choudhry, a 21-year-old university student, was jailed for life for the knife attack on Timms in May 2010. She stabbed him twice with a six-inch knife, damaging his liver and perforating his stomach. She later said that she had been influenced by the radical sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based Islamic preacher and al-Qaida leader. Police arrested Ahmad and he pleaded guilty to soliciting murder, publishing written material with intent to stir up religious hatred and three counts under Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which covers collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, said as well as providing the list of British politicians he advised that the best place to encounter them in person was at their constituency offices. He attached a link to The book of Jihad, a source of inspiration for Choudhry, calling for a renewed attack upon Timms and the destruction of not only the MP but also the judge who sentenced Choudhry. The website was an established source of information for Muslims holding extreme views and those who wanted to carry our their threats, added Dennis. The day before Choudhry was sentenced Ahmad posted on Facebook: "This sister has put us men to shame. WE SHOULD BE DOING THIS." Ahmad, now of Wollaton, Nottingham, was born in Warwickshire and studied for A-levels at Wolverhampton College. He became radicalized as a teenager and was an active contributor to RevolutionMuslim, Islam4UK and IslamicAwakening websites. He graduated from the University of Central England with a 2:2 degree in business information technology and worked for a year as a junior development analyst at the Dorset County hospital in Dorchester. The court heard that he had also posted on Facebook a link to YouTube where he recorded a video saying: "My message to the West. You are all going to die." He was in possession of electronic copies of books called 39 ways to serve and participate in jihad and Zaad-e-Mujahid: Essential provisions of a mujahadid as well as a magazine, Inspire, which instructs English-speaking young Muslims in how to train and organize violent jihad at home.