Two Islamic extremists have been found guilty of preparing a mass attack with automatic weapons against Jewish targets in England. The case reignites the alarm about the return of the jihadist threat and online radicalization after the end of the ISIS “caliphate”.
Two men were found guilty last Tuesday to have planned a jihadist terrorist attack which could have caused the deaths of hundreds of people, targeting the Jewish community in England. According to investigators, the plan, inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State, represents confirmation of the growing danger that the group continues to pose, despite the loss of its territorial “caliphate”. The British authorities indicated in Walid Saadaoui38 years old, and Amar Hussein52 years old, those responsible for the plot. The two were put on trial a week after a separate deadly attack in October Manchesternot connected to a synagogue but placed in a context of growing alert. According to the indictment, both were Islamic extremists determined to use automatic weapons to kill as many Jews as possible. If the project had been completed, it could have resulted in «one of the bloodiest terrorist attacks ever recorded in the United Kingdomif not the deadliest ever,” said the deputy police chief Robert Pottsresponsible for counterterrorism for the north-west England.
The convictions came just a few weeks after an anti-Semitic mass shooting during a celebration of Hanukkah on the beach Bondia Sydney, where fifteen people were killed. The Islamic State he called that attack “a source of pride”. Without formally claiming authorship, the group’s reaction has fueled fears of a new wave of violent Islamist extremism. Although ISIS today no longer has the military and territorial strength of a decade ago, when it controlled large areas of Iraq and Syria, European security agencies warn that the group and its branches, together with groups linked to al-Qaeda, are once again attempting to export violence abroad, focusing in particular on online radicalization. During the trial, prosecutors told jurors that Saadaoui and Hussein had “fully embraced the ideology” of the Islamic State and were ready to sacrifice their lives to become “martyrs.” At the time of his arrest in May 2024, Saadaoui had already organized the smuggling into the UK, via the port of Dover, of two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost two hundred rounds of ammunition, as reported by the prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu.
According to the prosecution, the man intended to obtain further weapons and accumulate at least nine hundred rounds. Without his knowledge, however, the intermediary known as «Farouk», from whom he was trying to buy the arsenal, was actually an undercover agent: a detail which, according to the police, prevented the plan from turning into a massacre. Sandhu He also stressed that the rifles requested were similar to those used in the 2015 Bataclan attack in Paris, in which 130 people died. Saadaoui, added the prosecutor, “revered” Abdelhamid Abaaoudone of the main coordinators of that action. In a message sent to «Farouk», who he believed to be another jihadist militant, Saadaoui had called the Paris attack «the largest operation after Osama’s», a clear reference to the attacks of September 11, 2001 in United States. “It was clear from the intercepted communications that he considered any less sophisticated attack or with less lethal weapons to be inadequate,” Potts explained. “His goal was to kill as many Jews as possible, which, in his opinion, would not have been possible with a knife or a vehicle.”
Both defendants have pleaded not guilty. Saadaoui claimed to have feigned participation in the plot for fear of being killed, while Hussein presented no evidence in his defense and participated only marginally in the trial, shouting from the dock on the first day: “How many children?”, in apparent reference to the war in Gaza. There Preston Crown Court However, he condemned them for preparing terrorist acts. The brother of Walid Saadaoui, Bilel Saadaoui36, was found guilty of failing to report relevant information on terrorist activities. Prosecutors, however, clarified that he showed no real desire to participate in the attack. The foiled plot is part of a series of violent projects, in Great Britain and elsewhere, inspired by the Islamic State, which emerged ten years ago in the chaos of Iraq and Syria. Between 2014 and 2017 the group had imposed a “caliphate” on millions of people, applying a brutal version of sharia and inspiring or claiming attacks in dozens of cities around the world, often without real direct involvement. After the attack of Bondi Beach ISIS has incited Muslims to act in other countries, particularly in Belgium. A European intelligence official, speaking anonymously, reported a massive spread of propaganda on social media that, while influencing only a limited number of individuals, led to an increase in counter-terrorism investigations compared to the previous year. The director of MI5, Ken McCallumsaid in October that since 2020, British security forces have foiled 19 late-stage plots and neutralized hundreds of other threats. “Terrorism thrives in the most degraded corners of the Internet,” he said, “where toxic ideologies of all kinds meet fragile and often deeply unstable existences.”
