New Qaeda video shows gun-toting assassins in "ninja" outfits

The chilling footage shows terrorists going through a series of shooting drills, The Sun reported.

It underlines the recent warning by Jonathan Evans, Chief of MI5, UK's internal counter-intelligence and security agency, that al-Qaeda fanatics continue to pose a threat.

In the film the extremists first adopt the classic firing pose, pistols held in both hands with arms outstretched.

They then drop to a crouch to pepper a target with bullets. The ninja terrorists are also filmed blasting AK-47 assault rifles, nicknamed the "Widowmaker".

They unleash volley after volley from the shoulder, then the waist, before shooting while kneeling, sitting and lying on the ground.

Two of the black-clad recruits are shown with a heavy machine gun. Other terrorists are filmed rehearsing drive-by shootings

Their arsenal also includes rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

It is thought the training drills were recorded at a camp on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Respected terrorism expert Chris Dobson said "Pistols are the weapon of choice for close-quarter murder, a favoured tool of the assassin."

"Al-Qaeda is showing that despite the battering they have taken in the past year, they are still a force," he added.

The video has been posted on extremist websites linked to al-Qaeda which are viewed thousands of times a day.

One site has 66,000 registered users. It is feared the terror network, whose leader Osama bin Laden was killed by the US in 2011 in Pakistan, intends a massacre in Britain or Europe like the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, that left 164 dead.