British counter-terrorism police have arrested two men in their 30s on suspicion of planning an imminent attack on Manchester’s Jewish community, with the operation unfolding just hours before the start of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
The men were detained on Sunday afternoon under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act by specialist officers working with MI5, according to The Telegraph. They were transferred under armed guard to London, where police have been granted additional time to question them.
Search teams targeted a hostel in Salford housed in a large Victorian building, along with a flat in Manchester. Authorities have not released details about what, if anything, was recovered.
A Long-Running Investigation
A spokesman for Counter Terrorism Policing described the operation as the culmination of a âlong-running proactive investigation which has led to the disruption of what we believe to be a plot to target the Jewish community in the Manchester area.â The spokesman acknowledged the anxiety such news would generate among Jewish residents and the broader public, and said counter-terrorism officers are coordinating with local police to prevent further threats.
Police have not issued an official statement on the ideology motivating the alleged plot. The Guardian reported that investigators consider far-right extremism unlikely, and that Islamic extremism is being examined as a possible motive. Separately, given mounting concerns about Iranian intelligence directing operations on British soil, sources say a potential connection to Tehran has not been ruled out.
Echoes of Last Year’s Attack
The arrests came nearly a year to the day after a deadly attack on Yom Kippur in 2025, when 35-year-old Syrian national Jihad al-Shamie drove a car into worshippers outside Heaton Park Synagogue and then attacked others with a knife. Police shot and killed the attacker, but a stray bullet also killed a member of the Jewish community.
That attack still weighs heavily on the city. Earlier this year, police acknowledged they had missed opportunities to prevent the violence: al-Shamie had been arrested multiple times before the attack and had his digital devices seized. Had officers examined the contents of those devices, they would have found evidence of attack planning, including hostile reconnaissance of a British military site.
The disclosure of those failures prompted significant criticism of police and intelligence agencies, and the new arrests have renewed questions about whether enough has been done in the intervening months to protect Jewish institutions in Manchester.
What we know so far rests largely on police statements and unnamed sources briefed on the investigation. No charges have been filed, and the suspects’ identities have not been made public.
Source: www.breitbart.com â https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/09/23/terror-police-say-they-foiled-imminent-yom-kippur-attack-in-manchester/