Manchester synagogue attacker is a new breed of jihadi By By Simon Cottee

UnHerd : Yesterday’s attack outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester, which was rapidly declared a terrorist incident by the police, had all the outward signs of a jihadi attack.

The perpetrator, Jihad Al-Shamie, rammed a vehicle into pedestrians before launching a marauding knife rampage. Two worshippers were killed, and three others were seriously injured, though the picture has now been complicated by reports that one of the victims died after being accidentally shot by armed police. Al-Shamie was wearing a fake suicide belt and very likely intended to die in the attack, knowing that the police wouldn’t take any chances once they saw it. As it happened, he was right.

Far-Right terrorists have launched ramming attacks before — most notably Darren Osborne near Finsbury Park Mosque in 2017 – but donning a fake suicide vest in the hope of “martyring” themselves isn’t usually part of their modus operandi. The last terrorist in Britain who wore a fake suicide belt and launched a stabbing attack was Sudesh Amman in February 2020, who non-fatally injured three people on Streatham High Road before being shot dead by police. He was being followed by undercover police at the time, having just been released from prison for terrorism offences. The same fate befell Usman Khan, who put on a fake suicide vest before fatally stabbing two people at Fishmongers’ Hall in November 2019.

Both were unrepentant jihadi fantasists who wanted to die with as much vehemence as they wanted to kill. Both also reviled infidels, who they thought could be justifiably slaughtered as part of a righteous defence of Islam — or, more specifically, to wreak vengeance for the final defeat of the Isis caliphate in March 2019.

But al-Shamie didn’t just target Western infidels in general yesterday: he targeted a synagogue and wanted to kill Jews. The driving grievance of the perpetrator may have had less to do with the greater transnational glory of Islam, as championed by al Qaeda or Isis, than a much broader sectarian hatred of Jews and Israel.

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