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Two men have been jailed for life after attempting to stage one of the UK’s deadliest terrorist attacks before it was thwarted by an undercover operative.
Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, who had sworn allegiance to Islamic State (IS), planned a marauding firearms attack targeting Greater Manchester’s Jewish community.
On Friday, the pair were sentenced at Preston crown court after being found guilty of preparing acts of terrorism between December 2023 and May 2024.
The prime mover in the plot, Tunisian-born Saadaoui, of Abram, Wigan, was ordered to serve a minimum of 37 years.
Hussein, of no fixed address, was ordered to serve at least 26 years.
Saadaoui’s younger brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 37, of Hindley, Wigan, was sentenced to six years in prison for failing to disclose information about the plan.
All three had denied the offences in a trial lasting almost three months last year, in which jurors were told they were Islamist extremists with a “visceral dislike” of Jewish people.
Walid Saadaoui, a former Italian restaurant owner and hotel entertainer, arranged for the purchase and delivery of semi-automatic rifles, conducted reconnaissance and identified targets, but the man supplying them with the weapons was an undercover operative.
The operative, known to them as Farouk, had infiltrated jihadist social media networks and convinced Saadaoui that he was a fellow extremist.
Saadaoui was arrested in a counter-terror strike involving more than 200 officers as he attempted to take possession of two assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition in the car park of the Last Drop hotel in Bolton on 8 May 2024. The weapons had been deactivated.
The court heard that Saadaoui hero-worshipped the IS terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who orchestrated the 2015 Paris terror attacks in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured in gun attacks.
Saadaoui and Hussein planned to disguise themselves as Jews and attack an antisemitism march in Manchester city centre before heading to suburbs north of Manchester city centre which are home to one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities.
Saadaoui, who used Facebook to disseminate IS propaganda and had been considering a lone knife attack for years, decided to escalate his plans after the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023. He recruited Hussein, a Bolton-based Kuwaiti national who is believed to have served in Saddam Hussein’s army, to assist his plans.
Believing Farouk would secure them guns, the pair travelled to Dover, Kent, in March 2024 to conduct surveillance on how a weapon could be smuggled through the port without detection.
On his return, Saadaoui travelled to Prestwich and Higher Broughton, north of Manchester, where he carried out reconnaissance on Jewish nurseries, schools, synagogues and shops. A safe house was also secured in Bolton for the storage of the weapons.
Sentencing, Mr Justice 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”.
He said: “I am sure this would have led to the deaths of many people and serious injuries to many, many more.
“Your plan envisaged you and two others discharging AK-47s into a large crowd of marchers, who were unarmed and defenceless.
“One hundred and twenty bullets could have been discharged before any reloads were required. You planned to have spare magazines available.
“Your attack would have led to the deaths of people of all ages, including children.”
After the verdicts last year, the assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police Robert Potts said the plot, “given the weaponry and ammunition involved, could potentially have been the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history”.
He added: “There was very real risk and danger for Farouk who undoubtedly saved lives. I cannot overemphasise his courage, bravery and professionalism in the role that he played.”
After the sentencing, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Sir Stephen Watson, said Jewish communities in the UK “put up with a way of life that nobody else has to put up with”.
He said Jews “have more justification to be fearful than anybody else”, which he said needed to be addressed. “We have seen the terrorist atrocity in Manchester at a synagogue on Yom Kippur,” Watson said. “We have seen the events on Bondi Beach in Sydney.
“We are seeing the manifestation of hatred moving beyond our shores globally and this is a threat to all of us. It is a threat to our Jewish communities and if our Jewish communities are under threat we are all under threat.”
