Life jail terms for duo who plotted attack on UK Jews

LONDON: A UK court on Friday jailed two men for life for planning a Daesh-inspired gun attack on a Jewish gathering in northern England.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who were arrested in May 2024, intended to target an antisemitism march in Manchester before killing more Jews in the northern English city.
Police thwarted their plans, hatched between December 2023 and May 2024, after they revealed them to an undercover operative posing as a like-minded extremist who could help import weapons.
A judge at Preston Crown Court sentenced Saadaoui, originally from Tunisia, to serve a minimum of 37 years in custody. Hussein, a Kuwaiti, will serve at least 26 years.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the jail terms in the “horrifying case.”
“I want to thank law enforcement for bringing these vile cowards to justice and reassure our Jewish community that we will never relent in our fight against antisemitism and terror,” the UK leader said on X.
The pair’s trial last year heard that Saadaoui hero-worshipped Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Daesh recruiter and ringleader for the November 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people were massacred.
A jury convicted Saadaoui and Hussein, who he recruited, of preparing acts of terrorism.
Judge Michael Wall told the defendants that if the plot had succeeded, it would “likely have been one of the deadliest terror attacks ever carried out on British soil.”
Main instigator Saadaoui had aimed to smuggle four AK-47 assault rifles, two handguns and 900 rounds of ammunition into the UK.
He also traveled to north Manchester to carry out surveillance on Jewish nurseries, schools, synagogues and shops.
Authorities began to investigate him after he used 10 Facebook accounts in fake names to post extremist views.
Counter-terrorism police intervened in May 2024 in an operation involving over 200 officers.
Saadaoui was arrested at a hotel car park after he went to collect some firearms, which had been intercepted and deactivated.
Last October, a deadly attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, killed two people and wounded four.
Police shot dead the perpetrator Jihad Al-Shamie, a Syrian-born UK citizen, at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, the scene of the attack.