Police were reportedly warned years before the Manchester synagogue terror attack by neighbours of Jihad al-Shamie about the future Islamist extremist becoming “radicalised”.
Last week, Syrian migrant turned British citizen, Jihad al-Shamie, 35, drove a car into Jewish worshipers at Manchester’s Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue and subsequently went on a stabbing spree while wearing a fake suicide vest. He was ultimately shot dead by police.
Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian Daulby, 53, died during the attack, and four others were left seriously injured.
Greater Manchester Police have said that the attack was likely “influenced by extreme Islamist ideology”, but have steadfastly maintained that Al-Shamie was not on any government terror watch list before the attack. They have acknowledged, however, that contrary to earlier government claims that he was not known on the police, al-Shamie was actually out on bail after being arrested for a suspected rape at the time of the attack.
Despite apparently not having been on a watchlist, former neighbours of the would-be attacker said on Monday that they raised concerns with police about Al-Shamie potentially becoming radicalised by Islamist ideology in the past.
Speaking to The Guardian, one neighbour said that “everything changed” during the Chinese coronavirus crisis, saying that Al-Shamie and a relative began wearing Islamic robes and started to hold secretive meetings in their garden and begun to preach to local “kids about the Qur’an”.
“They just started wearing all the robes and everything. I thought [one relative] was being radicalised because he wouldn’t speak to us for a bit,” the neighbour told the paper.
“They didn’t have any white friends. I thought: what the heck is going on? It wasn’t just praying in the garden – it was private and secret.”
She added that she reported her concerns of radicalisation to the Greater Manchester Police in the summer of 2021 or 2022, saying: “I would never do that if I weren’t [concerned].” Neighbours also told the paper that police had visited Al-Shamie’s family home earlier this year.
Meanwhile, a former Muslim girlfriend of the attacker has also claimed that he professed his desire to join ISIS, but said that she did not believe he would act on his “extreme views”.
Speaking anonymously to the Manchester Evening News, the former girlfriend said: “He used to say ‘I want you to be dedicated to the cause’, and he used to sit there and make me watch videos – like extreme videos – that I had no interest in.
“I am Muslim and of course I love to learn more – but this stuff was things that I have been raised to not agree with. He used to always say I was taught the wrong way and I wasn’t taught right. He was basically just trying to groom me into what he thought.”
Al-Shamie’s former partner, who is said to have been in an on-and-off relationship starting when she was 18, also claimed that she was sexually “groomed” by him as well, saying that he lied about his age, claiming to be 24 when he was in his mid 30s and lying about not having children or an ex-wife.
She said that he had shown her “extreme videos”, expressed his “rape fantasies”, and had once threatened to kill her “with his bare hands”.
Nevertheless, she said that the attack shocked her, saying of the images shared from the attack: “I don’t know what happened to him. When I saw that picture of him, his body language, it wasn’t him… It looked like he’d gone insane.”
“Every time I close my eyes I just see it. I don’t know who that person is in the picture. Yes he was horrible, but I never saw it going this far,” she said.
“I was ashamed of the relationship. I didn’t want anyone to know about him. I just thought his beliefs were very strong. Everyone has thoughts, but they’d never go out and hurt another person based off their beliefs… If I could go back, I would call the police. I understand now that his mind was his mind.”
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