The alleged plot to attack Jewish sites in Manchester on the eve of Yom Kippur represents, if the charges are proven, a deliberate act of antisemitic terrorism coordinated through encrypted communications and preceded by systematic reconnaissance — a pattern of operational preparation that courts will now be asked to examine with the full rigour of UK counter-terrorism law.
Rahman Salehi, 34, and Salam Ahmadyan, 36, both Iranian nationals, appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Saturday charged with preparing to commit an act of terrorism, or assisting another to do so. The two men were arrested on 20 September on Newton Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, one day before Yom Kippur, the holiest observance in the Jewish calendar. Their alleged targets included Heaton Park Synagogue and the city’s Jewish museum.
Prosecutor Mark Luckett told the court that both defendants stand accused of targeting the Jewish community in Manchester through the use of a homemade explosive device. The charges are specific and technical in character: the pair are accused of acquiring a document titled “Steps for Making [a] Powder Chlorine and Car Brake Oil/Fluid Bomb,” obtaining video instructions on how to manufacture or assemble an improvised explosive device, and gathering the liquids, components and equipment necessary to build one. They are further accused of communicating through encrypted applications to source additional components.
The prosecution’s account of the alleged preparatory conduct extends beyond the acquisition of materials. Both men are accused of using the internet to identify and research potential targets, acquiring images, plans and maps of those locations, and conducting physical reconnaissance of potential attack sites — a sequence of steps that, taken together, describes a methodical operational process rather than an impulsive act. Following their arrests, police carried out raids at Ahmadyan’s address on Epworth Street in Liverpool and at Salehi’s address on Lancaster Road in Salford.
Salehi, described in court as an Iranian Kurd, and Ahmadyan appeared side by side in grey prison-issue tracksuits, each confirming their personal details through court interpreters. District Judge Nina Tempia denied a bail application made on Salehi’s behalf; Ahmadyan did not apply. Both men were remanded in custody and will next appear at the Old Bailey on 23 October.
The charges have not yet been tested before a jury, and both men are presumed innocent. What the case already makes clear, however, is that British counter-terrorism authorities believe they disrupted a plot timed with deliberate symbolic intent — the targeting of Jewish communal life on its most sacred day. The implications, should the prosecution’s account be substantiated, extend well beyond the individuals in the dock: they raise urgent questions about the transnational networks through which such operations are allegedly planned, financed and equipped, and about the adequacy of existing frameworks for detecting them before the point of arrest.