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Two people have died after a knife and car attack at a synagogue in Manchester that led authorities across the UK to step up security measures at Jewish sites.
Greater Manchester Police confirmed the deaths on Thursday, adding that they shot the attacker and believed him to be dead.
GMP said that it could not yet confirm the assailant’s death due to “safety issues” relating to “suspicious items on his person”, saying that a bomb disposal unit was on the scene.
It said that three other members of the public remain in a serious condition.
Earlier the police had said that members of the public had suffered both “vehicle and stab wounds”.
The police said they had been called to the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue at around 9.30am. The force said the assailant had driven a car at members of the public.
The police said they had arrived on the scene in time to prevent the attacker from entering the synagogue.
“Shots were fired by Greater Manchester Police firearms officers at 9.38am. One man has been shot, believed to be the offender,” GMP said.
GMP have declared “Plato”, which refers to emergency responses to large-scale incidents including possible terrorist attacks.
Specialist counter-terrorist police, officers armed with machine guns and members of the army were seen at the site.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will return to London early from a summit in Copenhagen to chair the UK government’s Cobra emergency response group.
Starmer said he was “appalled” by Thursday’s incident, adding that the timing of the attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, “makes it all the more horrific”.
He added: “Additional police assets are being deployed to synagogues across the country, and we will do everything to keep our Jewish community safe.”
GMP said “a large number of people” were inside at the synagogue worshipping at the time of the attack.
Witnesses told police that one of the victims was a security guard at the synagogue.
Footage of the scene shared on social media showed the attacker writhing on the ground within the gates of the synagogue when police shoot him. An officer shouted to a nearby crowd “he has a bomb” and “move back”.
A damaged black Kia car can be seen near the gates to the synagogue having been driven off the road.
Early on Thursday afternoon, a large police cordon was in place in Crumpsall, the Manchester suburb where the attack occurred, which is multicultural with a very large Jewish community.
Members of the Community Security Trust, the Jewish organisation that oversees security for the community in close co-ordination with the police, were stood alongside officers behind the cordon.
A police helicopter remained overhead and members of the public had gathered.
A Jewish woman who lives nearby told the FT that all the nearby synagogues were on “lockdown”, adding that the situation was “very worrying”.
