British tabloid News of the World has some highly disturbing details about this week’s thwarted Islamic beheading plot. (Hat tip: kasper.)

THE al-Qaeda plot to behead a British Muslim soldier was smashed after MI5 intercepted a panic order to the kidnap gang: “If you can’t find a Muslim, ANY squaddie will do.”

The demand, made directly to Birmingham from a terror boss in Pakistan, came after the British-based cell spent days trawling a Midlands army base for a victim.

A military source revealed: “Security services and police had been watching for them to try to grab a Muslim soldier. But as soon as we knew they were willing to take anyone in any uniform — man or woman — and cut their head off then they had to act. The sheer casual, callous evil of what these British guys were willing to do on the orders of al-Qaeda is beyond belief.”

Now we can reveal the truth behind the Birmingham raids is even more terrifying than first thought.

* AL-QAEDA CHIEFS in Pakistan planned, ordered, directed and activated the plot. It was not a home-grown idea.

* Anti-terror police and MI5 became seriously concerned about the plot just FIVE WEEKS ago.

* None of the Birmingham suspects had recent terror training abroad. “SLEEPERS” were put in place years ago waiting to be activated.

* Suicide attacks were ruled out. Al-Qaeda wanted the group to do it AGAIN as many times as possible.

* Large bundles of CASH were handed over to the suspects to fund the planned atrocity—hiring houses, buying clothes and video cameras.

One senior Anti-Terrorist Squad officer said: “This is even more terrifying than some of the highly complex long-term plots we have already disrupted and taken to court, such as 21/7 and the airline bomb plot. ”It was barely a month in the making and its aim — to kidnap and kill one anonymous soldier — was so limited they could easily have succeeded. But the ramifications would have shocked the nation, probably the world.”