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Sunday, July 01, 2012

Gunshots fired at Manchester yeshiva

From TheJC:
A gunman has targeted a Yeshiva in Manchester firing shots at the building before escaping in a car.

No one was injured in the attack. Early reports say the incident targeted the Shaarei Torah Yeshiva in the mainly Jewish area of Broughton Park at around 2am last night.

Two cars were reportedly driving erratically around the yeshiva, the largest of its kind in Manchester and a large multi-storey building prominent for its Hebrew writing fronting its street entrance.

Some of the talmudic college's 170, mainly teenage, students came outside the building to discover the source of the disturbance when a flash was seen and a shot heard coming from the window of one of the cars. At least one bullet casing was discovered by students on road shortly after the cars sped off.

Police are currently on the scene, after having arrived moments after the incident, and have cordoned off the road immediately outside the college. Forensic teams are expected to be investigating the scene for clues as to who was responsible.

Most of the college's students are residential, and it is understood the scene inside the building is calm.
There happens to be a trial going on in Manchester of a couple who planned to bomb the Jewish community there:
A married couple inspired by al-Qaeda to blow up Jews in Manchester had planned a terror attack from their wedding day, a court has heard. Antisemitic Islamic hate speeches and videos of beheadings were found in their home.

Oldham hairdresser Shasta Khan denies charges of planning to acquire substances to produce a home-made bomb, relating to a period beginning August 10 2010, the day the pair were married at a small Islamic ceremony at Mrs Khan's parents' house. They had met through an Islamic marriage website.

Husband Mohammed Sajid Khan has already pleaded guilty to preparing for acts of terrorism and three counts of possessing terrorist material at an earlier trial.
Yesterday prosecution lawyers said that the couple could have been days from producing explosives and were following al-Qaeda instructions to make a home-made pipe bomb.

...The potential Jewish targets for the couple's alleged bomb were also partially disclosed. Mrs Khan told police that she had driven her husband to a Prestwich synagogue, and twice they had sat in its car park watching Jewish people enter, while her husband said a Koranic-inspired verse calling Jews “dirty” and said “we must kill them all”.

The couple had repeatedly driven past synagogues on Shabbat on Northumberland Street, in the heart of Salford's strictly Orthodox community.

The Jewish Agency in Prestwich was a favourite destination on the couple's Tom Tom navigation device, with its website bookmarked on their home computer, alongside that of the UJIA.

Turning to forensic evidence of the couple's two computers, Miss Cheema said that their small terraced house contained a “huge amount” of proscribed terrorist material.

Mrs Khan had watched Jihadi videos of gruesome beheadings and cars exploding, on a “nightly” basis with her husband, Sajid Khan, as she massaged his feet.
See how loving they are?