IMAGES of the ruined World Trade Centre and the burning wreckage of the Pentagon were among 49,000 found on the computer of one of the men accused of helping the July 7 bombers plan their attack, a court heard.

The photos were discovered on the hard drive of a computer belonging to Waheed Ali who is accused of accompanying two bombers on a reconnaissance trip to London.

A jury at Kingston Crown Court were shown a number of recovered images which included pictures of Osama Bin Laden, George Bush, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the banners of a number of websites.

Ali, 24, from Tower Hamlets, east London, is standing trial with Sadeer Saleem, 27, and Mohammed Shakil, 31, both from Beeston, Leeds, accused of conspiring with Mohammed Siddique Khan, Shezhad Tanweer, Jermaine Lindsay and Hasib Hussain and others unknown to cause explosions between November 17 2004 and July 8 2005.

Khan – the alleged July 7 ringleader – lived in Thornhill Lees with his wife and family. Lindsay was a former Rawthorpe High School student.

They and the other two suicide bombers murdered 52 people when they set off bombs on the capital’s transport network in 2005. The defendants deny the charge.

All three are alleged to have carried out a two day reconnaissance mission in the capital on December 16 and 17 2004 with bombers Hussain and Lindsay.

They are accused of pinpointing potential targets and the court has heard they visited the Natural History Museum, the London Eye and the London Aquarium.

The jury was told today that a total of 49,092 thumbnail images, including pornographic material and advertisements were recovered from Ali’s computer when it was seized from an address in Leeds.

Among them were banners from websites including “Prominent Martyrs of Iraq” and “Jihad Unspun”.

One image contained pictures of the flattened twin towers, an aircraft about to strike one of the buildings and the Statue of Liberty with the words “Knowledge is for acting upon”.

Other images included military vehicles, Middle-Eastern soldiers carrying firearms and public gatherings.

One picture showed a man wearing a headscarf carrying a weapon. In another, a close up of the same man’s face, he appears to be dead.