How gun plot on Manchester’s Jewish community was stopped

Two men planning to attack Jews in Greater Manchester in what could be “the UK’s deadliest terror attack” were caught by an undercover agent, putting them in “significant danger”, police said.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, arranged to smuggle four AK-47 assault rifles, two pistols and 900 rounds of ammunition into the country.

Saadaoui worked with Amar Hussein, 52, and another man named Farouk, who is believed to share the same extremist ideology.

However, Faruk was actually an undercover agent.

Manchester Police said Farouk had authority to contact Saadaoui after detectives linked several Facebook pages he had set up using false names to promote Islamic extremist views.

“He put himself in a situation of serious personal danger,” Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) Rob Potts said.

“He risked his life to give us the ability to protect the public.”

At Saadaoui’s trial, it was said that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the hero-worshipping Islamic State (IS) terrorist who organized the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks in which 130 people died, was the one who committed the attacks.

He described the killing of 130 people and the wounding of hundreds as a “major incident”.

Farouk contacted Saadaoui in December 2022 before meeting in a car park in Bolton to discuss a plan to bring the weapons into the country from Europe.

“We didn’t know who he was at the time, so we needed to do more work to identify this person,” ACC Potts said.

“Through this, we were able to learn and understand his ideology, his mentality and what he hoped to achieve.”

ACC Potts said the operator’s role was “absolutely vital”.

“This gave us the best ability to obtain the evidence we needed, but also allowed us to control the operation and allow us to run it without any risk involving the public.”

Saadaoui, who is understood to have UK citizenship, was working as an entertainer at a hotel in the Tunisian seaside resort of Sousse more than a decade before he planned his mass killing spree.

During the day, he joined guests, mostly Western tourists, in pool sessions such as aerobics and water polo, while at night he helped stage dance shows and trivia contests.

He became involved with a British holidaymaker called Jane and told his hearing at Preston Crown Court that they lived in their home country for a year and got married before deciding to move to England in 2012.

Saadaoui successfully applied for a work visa and the couple moved to Clacton-on Sea in Essex, where he worked at the town’s Haven Resort and worked in its shops, bakeries and arcades.

He said he saved money by working extra hours at the facility for six years and bought The Albatross restaurant in Great Yarmouth in April 2018 with the help of a bank loan.

His marriage ended earlier that year, he said, and he later met his second wife, Michelle, who worked in an Italian restaurant, and they had two children.

In 2023, he sold the restaurant and his house as his family moved to a house he bought for cash in Wigan, Greater Manchester. He emptied his bank account with multiple withdrawals in July and August of the same year.

Prosecutors at his trial said Saadaoui moved to Greater Manchester solely to accelerate his plans to be martyred in a terrorist attack targeting Jews in the area.

To help with his plans, Saadaoui recruited ISIS sympathizer Hussein, a Kuwaiti national who worked and lived in a furniture store in Bolton.

Hussein told detectives he was not part of any plan and said the undercover police officer’s evidence was “fantasy”.

His lawyer told jurors that Hussein had “very strong views” about the conflict in Gaza, but that did not make him a terrorist.

Saadaoui’s younger brother, Bilel Saadaoui, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about the plans.

She also worked in a hotel in Sousse and married a British tourist, a widowed hairdresser who was on holiday with her two young children.

They met in 2010 and began a relationship a year later, before marrying in November 2014 and moving to Hindley, Wigan.

He had been working as a casual worker at Pound Bargains in Market Street, Hindley, since 2020.

The hearing heard he was his brother’s confidant and shared his support for the Islamic State. The court heard the key to Walid Saadaoui’s safe and a copy of his will were also found.

When Walid Saadaoui went to collect weapons he planned to use in a shooting attack, his younger brother sent him the following message: “May God protect you.

“If you see something in them that displeases/disturbs you or almost exposes you, give it up or return it. That is better for you.”

The court heard Bilel Saadaoui has permission to stay in the UK until next September.

Their plan was to take weapons and ammunition and identify a mass Jewish community that they could attack. .

Walid Saadaoui and Hussein were planning to target an antisemitism march in the summer of 2023, after 6,500 people attended an earlier meeting in January.

Police said they believed Walid Saadaoui planned to commit suicide after the attack because they saw evidence that he ‘continued his behaviour’.

Police said he buried £74,000 in cash for his family in a safe in the concrete floor of a shed in his garden.

The court heard that Saadaoui’s Facebook account included the profile photo of Abaaoud, who organized the 2015 Paris attack.

Undercover agent Farouk said Walid Saadaoui “assumed the persona” of a supporter of the so-called Islamic State group in subsequent Arabic messages.

Walid Saadaoui said in a message: “God bless you. You need to do what he did.

“Take his example and carry out operations against the Jews and the Crusaders there, and shooting them there will have a very bad effect on them.”

Saadaoui is also said to have later written: “I may use a knife in the operation, but that will not be enough for revenge, just an automatic weapon. I want to kill that many.” [as possible].

“I have a lot of anger. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to walk out. [kill] them with stones. Then I tell myself it would be a waste, I have to do a lot.”

Faruk replied to him: “The knife is not the solution.

“I must make the greatest effort possible. That is my intention, God willing.”

Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu KC asked Farouk during the hearing: “Was this part of your personality?”

He replied: “That’s true.”

The undercover officer, who presented scanned statements from the defendants and the public gallery, added: “In this instance I was echoing what Walid had told me earlier.

“In order for me to work in this job, you have to speak a certain way. If you don’t convey it a certain way, then he won’t give me any more information about his intentions.”

Faruk said he would arrange for the weapons to be brought to Europe and smuggle them to England by putting them in a car on the Dover ferry.

The men believed they were smuggling two AK47 rifles and four hundred rounds of ammunition. Counter-terrorism police said the supply and delivery of weapons was under control at all times in order to protect the public.

“Had they achieved what they set out to do with the weapons they sought to seize, this could potentially have been the most devastating and deadly terrorist attack in UK history,” ACC Potts said.

Walid Saadaoui was arrested next to a car in a hotel car park in Bolton on May 8, 2023.

The court reported that there were 2 assault rifles, a semi-automatic pistol and nearly 200 bullets in the vehicle.

Hussein and Bilel Saddaoui, who were both elsewhere, were arrested minutes later.

Walid Saadaoui and Hussein were found guilty of preparing for terrorist acts between December 13, 2023 and May 9, 2024.

Bilel Saadaoui was found guilty of failing to disclose information regarding terrorist acts.