Author: Sam Tobin and Andy Bruce
LONDON (Reuters) – Two men were found guilty on Tuesday of plotting to kill hundreds of people in Islamic State-inspired shootings targeting England’s Jewish community, with investigators saying the planned attacks showed the militant group was once again a risk.
Police and prosecutors said Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were Islamic extremists who wanted to kill as many Jews as possible using automatic firearms.
Assistant Chief Constable Robert Potts, who is responsible for counter-terrorism policing in north-west England, said if their plans were to come to fruition it would result in “the deadliest terrorist attack, if not one of the deadliest, in British history”.
More than a week ago, a mass shooting occurred at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, leaving 15 people dead.
Islamic State called the Australian attack a “source of pride”. While the jihadist group did not claim responsibility, the response heightened concerns about a rise in violent Islamic extremism.
European security officials have warned that while the Islamic State group no longer poses the threat it did a decade ago when it controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria, the group and its al-Qaeda affiliate are once again seeking to export violence abroad, radicalizing would-be attackers online.
“You can see some signs that the terrorist threat is starting to grow again and starting to escalate,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said last week.
Two men preparing to become martyrs
British prosecutors told jurors that Saadawi and Hussein “adopted the Islamic State’s perspective” and were prepared to risk their lives to become “martyrs”.
Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said that when Saadawi was arrested in May 2024, he had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and nearly 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into the UK through the port of Dover.
He added that Saadawi planned to acquire two more rifles and a pistol and collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition. What he didn’t know was that he was trying to obtain weapons from a man named “Farook,” who was an undercover agent, which police say meant his plan never came close to being put into effect.
Sandhu said the assault rifle El-Saadawi wanted was similar to the one used in the 2015 attack by Islamist militants on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, which killed 130 people. He added that Saadawi “worshiped the hero” Abdulhamid Abaaoud, who coordinated the attack.
In a message to “Farooq,” Saadawi said he believed Farooq was a militant and that the Paris attacks were “the largest operation since Osama’s (bin Laden) attacks,” an apparent reference to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
“Based on Waleed’s communications and interactions with the undercover agent, and some of the things he said, it was clear that he believed a less sophisticated attack using a less lethal weapon was not good enough,” Potts said.
“Because, in reality, his role and responsibility was to kill as many Jews as possible, and that couldn’t be accomplished by using a knife or, for example, possibly a vehicle as a weapon.”
Both Sa’adoui and Hussein have pleaded not guilty, with Sa’adoui saying he took part in the plot out of fear for his life.
Hussain gave no evidence and barely attended the trial after angrily shouting “How many babies?” from the dock on the first day. An apparent reference to Israel’s war in Gaza.
They were convicted at Preston Crown Court on one count of preparing to commit a terrorist act.
Walid Saadaoui’s 36-year-old brother, Bilel Saadaoui, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about a terrorist act, but prosecutors said he had been reluctant to take part in the attacks.
The growing threat from ISIS
The foiled plot is the latest in the UK and elsewhere to be inspired by Islamic State, which emerged in Iraq and Syria a decade ago and quickly established a “caliphate” that declared its rule over all Muslims and largely replaced Al Qaeda.
At its height from 2014-17, ISIS controlled large swathes of both countries, ruled over millions of people and imposed a strict, brutal interpretation of Islamic law.
Its fighters have also launched or instigated attacks in dozens of cities around the world that are often claimed by the Islamic State even without any actual connection.
The SITE intelligence group said that after the Bondi Beach attack in Australia, Islamic State encouraged Muslims to take action elsewhere, particularly targeting Belgium.
One European intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Islamic State was spreading a lot of propaganda on social media, and while it only affected a small number of people, it meant there were more terrorism investigations than last year.
Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic spy agency MI5, said in October that his department and police had foiled 19 late-stage attack plots since the start of 2020 and intervened to deal with hundreds of other terrorist threats.
“Terrorism thrives in the seedy corners of the internet, where toxic ideologies of whatever kind meet unstable and often chaotic personal lives,” McCallum said.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin in London and Andy Bruce in Manchester; Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
