Pair convicted of plotting attack on Jews in Manchester

Two men have been convicted of planning an Islamic State-inspired gun attack on a mass gathering of Jews in the Manchester area. Handout photo dated 08/05/24 issued by Greater Manchester Police of Amar Hussein (L) and Walid Saadaoui in Dover, Kent Walid Saadaoui, aged 38, and Amar Hussein, aged 52, had a "visceral dislike" of Jewish people and wanted to cause "untold harm" but the plot was scuppered as they unknowingly laid bare their scheme to an undercover operative (UCO). Main instigator Saadaoui aimed to smuggle four AK-47 assault rifles, two handguns and 900 rounds of ammunition into the UK in what police said could have been Britain's deadliest terrorist incident. Months earlier the father-of-two, originally from Tunisia, paid a deposit for the weapons and believed he had arranged for their importation with a like-minded extremist but who in fact was the UCO, referred to in court as Farouk. Saadaoui told Farouk he could independently obtain a firearm via Sweden and indicated he was looking to bring guns from eastern Europe. Separately he had bought an air weapon and had visited a shooting range. 'Strike day' Counter-terrorism police intervened on the "strike day" of 8 May last year, with more than 200 officers involved, as Saadaoui was arrested at a hotel car park in Bolton when he went to collect some of the firearms, which had been deactivated. Preston Crown Court heard he hero-worshipped IS terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud who orchestrated the 2015 Paris terror attacks in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured in gun attacks across the city. No specific target site or date was identified but prosecutors said the defendants planned to launch a gun assault on an antisemitism march and then head to north Manchester to kill more Jews. Saadaoui came to the attention of the authorities when he used 10 Facebook accounts, none of which were in his own name, to spread a torrent of Islamic extremist views, as Farouk was deployed to gain his trust online and later in person. He used one of his fake accounts to join the Facebook group of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester which contained details of a "March Against Antisemitism" held in the city centre on 21 January last year which thousands attended. Days later he told Farouk: "Here in Manchester, we have the biggest Jewish community. "God willing we will degrade and humiliate them (in the worst way possible), and hit them where it hurts." Saadaoui recruited fellow IS sympathiser Hussein, a Kuwaiti national, who worked and lived at a furniture shop in Bolton, Greater Manchester, to assist his plans. The pair travelled to Dover, Kent, in March 2024 to conduct hostile reconnaissance on how a weapon could be smuggled through the port without detection. On his return, Saadaoui travelled to Prestwich and Higher Broughton in north Manchester where he carried out similar surveillance on Jewish nurseries, schools, synagogues and shops. A safe house was also secured in Bolton for the storage of the...

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