Two men were found guilty on Tuesday of plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired gun rampage against the Jewish community in England, a planned attack investigators say shows the resurgent risk posed by the militant group.
Police and prosecutors said Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who went on trial a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the nearby northwest city of Manchester in October, were Islamic extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could.
Had their plans come to fruition, it would have resulted in “one of, if not the, deadliest terrorist attack in UK history”, said Assistant Chief Constable Robert Potts, in charge of counterterrorism Policing in northwest England.
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Their convictions come little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.
Islamic State said the Australian attacks were a “source of pride”. Although the jihadist group did not claim responsibility, its response has heightened fears of an increase in violent Islamist extremism.
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Australian PM Anthony Albanese booed at Bondi attack memorial
Australian PM Anthony Albanese booed at Bondi attack memorial
While not posing the same threat of a decade ago when Islamic State controlled vast areas of Iraq and Syria, European security officials caution that IS and affiliated al-Qaeda groups are once again looking to export violence abroad, radicalising would-be attackers online.