Two men were found guilty on Tuesday of plotting an Islamic State–inspired terrorist attack aimed at killing hundreds of people from the Jewish community in England, a case that authorities say underscores renewed concerns about violent Islamist extremism.
Police and prosecutors said Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were Islamic extremists who planned to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jewish people as possible. Their trial began shortly after an unrelated fatal attack on a synagogue in the north-western city of Manchester in October.
Assistant Chief Constable Robert Potts, who leads Counter-Terrorism Policing in north-west England, said that if the plan had been carried out, it would have been “one of, if not the, deadliest terrorist attacks in UK history”.
The convictions came little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, which killed 15 people. Islamic State described the Australian attack as a “source of pride”. Although the group did not formally claim responsibility, its reaction raised concerns among security officials about a possible resurgence in violent Islamist extremism.
European security officials say Islamic State no longer poses the same level of threat it did a decade ago, when it controlled large areas of Iraq and Syria. However, they warn that the group, along with affiliated al Qaeda networks, is once again attempting to inspire attacks abroad through online radicalisation.
“You can see signs of some of those terrorism threats starting to grow again and starting to escalate,” British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said last week.
Prepared to Become Martyrs
Prosecutors told the jury that Saadaoui and Hussein had “embraced the views” of Islamic State and were prepared to sacrifice their lives in order to become “martyrs”.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and nearly 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover before his arrest in May 2024. He also planned to acquire two additional rifles, another pistol and at least 900 rounds of ammunition.
Police said the plot never progressed to an operational stage because the individual Saadaoui believed was supplying the weapons, known as “Farouk”, was in fact an undercover operative.
Sandhu told the court that the assault rifles Saadaoui sought were similar to those used in the 2015 Bataclan concert hall attack in Paris, which killed 130 people. He said Saadaoui “hero-worshipped” Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the coordinator of that attack.
In a message to “Farouk”, Saadaoui described the Paris attack as “the biggest operation after that of Osama (bin Laden)”, an apparent reference to the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
“Based on Walid’s communications and interactions with the undercover operative, and some of the things he said, that made it very clear that he regarded a less sophisticated attack with less lethal weaponry as not being good enough,” Potts said.
“Because, in effect, it was his role and his duty to kill as many Jewish people as he could, and that wasn’t going to be achieved via the use of a knife or, for example, potentially a vehicle as a weapon.”
Both Saadaoui and Hussein pleaded not guilty. Saadaoui told the court he had participated in the discussions out of fear for his life. Hussein did not give evidence and was largely absent from the trial after shouting from the dock on the first day, “how many babies?”, an apparent reference to Israel’s war in Gaza.
They were convicted at Preston Crown Court on a single charge of preparing terrorist acts.
Walid Saadaoui’s brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 36, was also found guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist activities. Prosecutors said he had shared extremist views but had been reluctant to actively participate in the plot.
Growing Islamic State Threat
The case is the latest in Britain and elsewhere to be inspired by Islamic State, which emerged in Iraq and Syria more than a decade ago and declared a so-called “caliphate”, largely eclipsing al Qaeda at the time.
At its peak between 2014 and 2017, the group controlled vast territories in Iraq and Syria, ruled millions of people, and imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic sharia law. Its fighters also carried out or inspired attacks in dozens of cities worldwide, frequently claiming responsibility even when links were unclear.
Following the Bondi Beach attack in Australia, the SITE Intelligence Group said Islamic State had urged Muslims to carry out attacks elsewhere, with Belgium highlighted in particular.
A European intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Islamic State had intensified its propaganda efforts on social media. While this influenced only a small number of individuals, it had contributed to an increase in terrorism investigations compared with last year.
Ken McCallum, director-general of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, said in October that security services had thwarted 19 late-stage terrorist plots since the start of 2020 and disrupted hundreds of other threats.
“Terrorism breeds in squalid corners of the internet where poisonous ideologies, of whatever sort, meet volatile, often chaotic individual lives,” McCallum said.