Two Iranian nationals were charged Friday with allegedly plotting a terrorist attack against Jewish people in Manchester, UK, during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
British counterterrorism police said Salam Ahmadyan, 36, and Rahman Salehi, 34, were accused of planning an attack in the city.
According to police, the men allegedly used encrypted messaging apps to obtain homemade explosive materials and a document titled “Steps for Making [a] Powder Chlorine and Car Brake Oil/Fluid Bomb.”
Authorities also allege that both suspects collected photographs, plans and maps of potential targets, while carrying out reconnaissance at possible attack locations.
The alleged plot came as Manchester marked the anniversary of last year’s Islamist terrorist attack at a synagogue in the city, which killed two worshippers.
Ahmadyan, who lived in Liverpool, and Salehi, a resident of Salford near Manchester, were allegedly communicating with a third party believed possibly to be in Iran, authorities said.
The British government said both men are believed to have entered the UK illegally in recent years aboard small boats operated by migrant smugglers.
Counterterrorism officers arrested the pair in Manchester on Sept. 20, one day before Yom Kippur.
“This news will be deeply distressing for our Jewish communities, coming so soon after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur,” British government minister Shabana Mahmood said Friday.
“I know this will be especially true in Manchester, as we mark one year since the terrorist attack at Heaton Park Synagogue,” she added.
The disclosure of the alleged Iranian-backed plot came just hours after police arrested another Iranian national in London over a separate suspected plan targeting a British air force base the previous weekend.
The unidentified 25-year-old was arrested Thursday in connection with an alleged plot against RAF Fairford, located about 90 miles southwest of London. The base is used by the US Air Force for missions to Iran, according to British counterterrorism police.
Five British nationals were arrested after suspected explosives were discovered early Sunday in three vans near the base. All five were later released on bail.
The substances were subsequently identified as gasoline, and the incident remains under investigation as a possible Iranian-backed plot.
British authorities are treating the two incidents as unrelated for now. However, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, the UK’s Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said Friday that they had “brought into sharp focus some of the wider threats being projected into the UK from Iran.”
Iran has firmly denied involvement in last Sunday’s foiled plot. Its embassy in London issued a strong rebuttal to claims that Iranian proxies planned to attack US forces in Britain.
Iran has not yet responded to reports that two of its nationals allegedly planned an attack against Jewish people in Manchester.
With Post wires
