A supergrass with al-Qaida connections told a court how he and a group of Muslims "brothers" from Crawley went to Pakistan for the Jihad.

Mohammed Babar, 31, a Pakistani-born American citizen, told how he travelled to Britain and then to Pakistan with the intention of going to Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks in the United States in 2001.

While in Pakistan, he met a number of Britons.

He said: "The majority had Pakistani ancestry and were from the UK, basically from Crawley and London."

He said the term "brothers" related to Muslim brothers and could be used to refer to Arabs or members of al-Qaida.

Babar told the Old Bailey yesterday that he had decided to fight against America despite his mother narrowly escaping the 9/11 bombings.

Babar has been flown to England to give evidence against seven British citizens, including four men from Crawley.

He said he was a member of their cell, meeting them in training camps in Pakistan.

Babar, who has pleaded guilty in New York to being part of the British plot, has been given immunity from prosecution in the UK.

Omar Khyam, 24, Shujah Mahmood, 19, Waheed Mahmood, 34, and Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley, Salahuddin Amin, 31, from Luton, Anthony Garcia, 23, from Ilford, east London, and Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley near Gatwick, are accused of being in the terror cell. They deny conspiring to cause explosions between January 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004.

The trial is expected to continue today.