Featured Image Credit: (Getty Images/Olli Scarf)
Topics: UK News
Brenna Cooper
Police have named the man believed to be responsible for a stabbing and car-ramming which took place at a Greater Manchester synagogue.
Earlier today (2 October) Greater Manchester Police confirmed that a man had been shot and killed after an attack outside of Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue killed two people and left three more hospitalised in a serious condition.
The incident has since confirmed to have been a terrorist attack, with GMP naming the suspect as 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie, a British citizen of Syrian descent.
"Based on what we currently know, our records do not show any previous Prevent referrals relating to this individual," the force added (via Sky News).
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According to the BBC, Al-Shamie is understood to have moved to the UK as a young child, later gaining citizenship in 2006.
Three other people - two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s - have also been arrested in connection to the attack.
GMP also released further details about the three people currently hospitalised after the attack, saying that one person sustained stab wounds while a second person was struck by a moving vehicle.
A third person is said to have later presented themself at hospital with 'an injury that may have been sustained as officers stopped the attacker'.
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Officers are currently working to formally identify the two people killed in the attack as well as identify a motive.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has since condemned the attack and promised that 'additional police assets' would be safeguarding synagogues as well as Jewish schools and sites.
"To every Jewish person in this country, I also want to say this: I know how much fear you will be holding inside of you. I really do," he said.
"And so, on behalf of our country, I express my solidarity, but also my sadness that you still have to live with these fears. Nobody should have to do that. Nobody.
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"And so I promise you that I will do everything in my power to guarantee you the security that you deserve, starting with a more visible police presence, protecting your community."
The UK's Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis has also released a statement, calling the attack 'the day we hoped we would never see, but which deep down, we knew would come'.
"Our hearts are shattered," he wrote on X.
"This not only an assault on the Jewish community, but an attack on the very foundations of humanity and the values of compassion, dignity and respect which we all share.
"May the victims’ memories be for a blessing and may the injured be granted a swift recovery.
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"I pray that this tragedy strengthens our collective resolve to confront antisemitism, in all its guises, once and for all."