Friend of Manchester synagogue attacker jailed over military base plot

A terrorist friend of the Manchester synagogue attacker has been jailed for life after they planned a separate atrocity targeting a military base.

Mohammad Bashir, 31, drove Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, on a 10-hour round trip to conduct hostile reconnaissance at the UK’s defense Academy in Shrivenham, Swindon, on August 14 last year.

Months later, on October 2, Syrian-born UK citizen Al-Shamie was shot dead by police after killing two Jewish men at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue.

Bashir, of Cheetham Hill, Manchester, pleaded guilty to the preparation of terrorist acts and was jailed at Manchester Crown Court today.

Prosecutors said there was no evidence to suggest Bashir had any involvement in the Heaton Park incident.

But the planned attack on the defense facility was similar in nature and would have caused multiple fatalities, they said.

MoD Shrivenham is the home of the UK’s defense Academy, which provides professional defense and security education to the British armed forces, wider UK government, UK industry and overseas personnel.

Routinely, there will be up to 4,000 staff, contractors, students and visitors on site at any given time.

Sentencing Bashir on Thursday, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told him that by August last year he had become a ‘firmly committed jihadist’ and together with Al-Shamie was ‘equally engaged’ in planning an attack on a British military target ‘in which you and he expected to kill and be killed’.

She rejected his claim to a probation officer that he no longer held extremist views and regretted his actions.

The judge said: ‘I consider you remain dangerous. You have given no grounds that your attitude has really changed at all.’

Following sentencing, Manchester-born Bashir, who also holds a Pakistani passport, smiled to family members in the upper public gallery of the courtroom as he casually walked from the dock.

Following the synagogue attack, WhatsApp messages and voice note exchanges between the pair were uncovered when police analyzed two phones seized from Al-Shamie earlier in 2025.

The devices were confiscated from him when he was arrested in February over an alleged breach of a non-molestation order and in September on suspicion of rape.

Sir Stephen Watson, Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, issued an apology over the ‘missed opportunity’ to gather intelligence on Al-Shamie before he launched his attack.

The court heard that police also obtained a warrant to examine Al-Shamie’s online iCloud and iPhone storage data, while CCTV footage of the two men at the Al-Sunnah Mosque in Cheetham Hill also formed a key part of the prosecution case.

Both wrongly thought they had hidden from cameras and their conversations would not be heard as they discussed their plans.

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