One of the two victims of the attack on the Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur was killed by friendly fire from one of the police officers who intervened to neutralize the attacker. Greater Manchester Police Commander Stephen Watson admitted this in an update on the investigation, based on examinations of the body. One of the four injured (not seriously) also appears to have been hit by gunfire, and therefore by police, during the shooting. The two, according to Watson, were near the entrance to the synagogue, not far from the attacker, 35-year-old Jihadi al Shamie.
The attack in the United Kingdom, during the holiest holiday in the Jewish calendar, was immediately certified by British police as "terrorist" and sowed fear and death in the synagogue crowded with worshippers called to the first morning prayer on the traditional day of silence and purification . The attacker, a bald and bearded man in training gear, wearing a sort of bulletproof vest and an "apparently explosive" (in reality useless) belt, swooped down on the synagogue, first driving a car and plowing into the congregation.
He then descended, knife in hand, attacking several worshippers and at least one guard, attempting to force his way toward the temple entrance. Only the "courage" of those inside prevented him from succeeding, Sir Stephen Watson stated. This gave an initial armed patrol of his officers time to arrive on the scene, "within seven minutes" on the clock, and neutralize him. The man was killed by police fire after ignoring a stop, as shown in a shocking video in which one of the officers can be heard shouting to passersby: "He's got a bomb, move away!"
Dozens of patrol cars and ambulances arrived at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, an Ashkenazi Orthodox church located on Middleton Road in the suburb of Crumpsall, while helicopters also circled overhead. The investigation was entrusted, alongside the local police, to Scotland Yard's National Counter-Terrorism Unit . Its Chief of Staff, Laurence Taylor, announced this afternoon the arrest of two people, suspected accomplices of the murdered attacker. This confirms an "expeditious" investigation, but one that may this time go beyond the recurring scenario of a lone radical maverick. Although investigators—after having the bomb squad perform controlled explosions on the vehicle and the attacker's belt—have declared the all clear regarding any imminent further risks to the community.
Fears that this could be a coordinated attack with other potential raids against several synagogues in the Kingdom arose at the time of the initial alert, the BBC reports. This was even more so in the climate of protests and tensions spreading—both within and outside Muslim communities— against the Israeli escalation in the Palestinian Gaza Strip . Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose wife, Victoria, is of Jewish origin, expressed his "horrified" by the "Yom Kippur attack." "We will do everything it takes to embrace and keep our Jewish community safe," he later promised on television after an emergency meeting of the Cobra emergencies committee, announcing an immediate strengthening of protections for Jewish sites against "the resurgent daily threats of anti-Semitic hatred." Meanwhile, King Charles and Queen Camilla said they were "deeply shocked and saddened," expressing their closeness to the Kingdom's Jews - numerous and historically integrated - as did Princes William and Kate.
(Unioneonline)