"When Walid Saadaoui recruited Amar Hussein to join him in a pogrom on the streets of Greater Manchester, Hussein wept with joy. For years, the two men had been sleeper agents for the Islamic State terrorist group. Each had lived quietly in Britain for years, waiting for the right moment to stage an attack, and for the right person to give them the support to make it happen. Now, finally, it seemed that zero hour as they called it had arrived."
"They planned to disguise themselves as Jews to infiltrate a march against antisemitism in Manchester city centre, before opening fire on the crowd with assault rifles. The pair hoped to throw emergency services into chaos by paying people to make 999 calls across Greater Manchester, allowing them to slip away and continue their attack in the suburbs at the centre of the region's Jewish community."
"Saadaoui also planned to attack Christians, saying: God willing after we finish with the Jews we move on to the crusaders. It would have been, according to senior detectives, the worst terrorist attack the UK had ever seen. Both men envisaged being martyred, but neither reckoned with the prospect that a man they believed to be a crucial player in their plot could be a counter-terrorism undercover operative (UCO)."
Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein operated as Islamic State sleeper agents in Britain for years, awaiting orders to carry out an attack. They planned to disguise themselves as Jews to infiltrate an anti-antisemitism march in central Manchester and open fire on the crowd with assault rifles. They intended to create wider chaos by paying people to make 999 calls across Greater Manchester so emergency services would be overwhelmed while they continued attacks in suburban Jewish neighborhoods. Saadaoui also targeted Christians. Saadaoui was arrested in a hotel car park after an associate proved to be an undercover counter-terrorism operative; Hussein was detained at his workplace.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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