An inmate at a high-security jail is accused of trying to murder the prison’s imam after obtaining a knife behind bars, a court has heard.

Ahmed Ali Alid, 47, is accused of the attempted murder of Roderic Vassie in an incident at HMP Full Sutton in Yorkshire on August 8 last year.

Westminster Magistrates Court heard Alid, a Moroccan national, is accused of having a knife and using it to “slice” the top of Mr Vassie’s head before attempting to stab him five times.

Alid is also accused of inflicting actual bodily harm on prison guard Sarah Mitchell on October 21 last year, after he had been moved to HMP Wakefield.

Alid, who was charged following a Counter Terrorism Policing North East investigation, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday to face the charges for the first time.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Tan Ikram sent the case to the Old Bailey for a hearing on April 17.

Alid, from Hartlepool, did not indicate any pleas to the charges of attempted murder, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and possession of an offensive weapon in a prison.

“The defendant was a serving prisoner at HMP Full Sutton,” set out prosecutor Sally-Anne Russell.

“The first incident is that, on August 8, he attacked the imam in the prison using a sharp weapon.”

She said it is alleged Alid “sliced the top of his head with the weapon and then attempted to stab him a further five times to the head and neck area”.

Ms Russell said the alleged attack on Ms Mitchell happened when she opened his cell door at HMP Wakefield.

Alid appeared for the court hearing on a videolink from HMP Wakefield and he remains in custody.

Police have launched an online portal seeking tips about an arson attack on a synagogue in the northern German city of Oldenburg last Friday that prompted widespread outrage.

An incendiary device was thrown at the front door of the synagogue. Two janitors at a neighbouring cultural centre discovered the fire and extinguished it. No one was injured, but the perpetrators managed to escape and have not been identified.

Police investigating the crime announced the portal for tips on Thursday, and added that videos and photos could also be uploaded to the site.

A reward of €5,000 (about $5,400) has also been offered for tips that help solve the crime and identify the perpetrators.

The incident made headlines nationwide in Germany and prompted expressions of outrage and horror from leaders.

On Sunday, about 400 people took part in a rally in Oldenburg organized by a local alliance against anti-Semitism.

A teenager has died and at least 18 others have been hurt after two explosions near bus stops in Jerusalem, in what police said were suspected attacks by Palestinians.

The first blast occurred near a bus stop on the edge of the city, where many commuters gather during rush hour. The second detonation took place in Ramot, a neighbourhood in the city’s north.

The victim was identified as 15-year-old Aryeh Shechopek, who was heading to a Jewish seminary when the blast went off, according to a notice announcing his death.

The apparent attacks came as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are high, following months of Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people. There has been a surge in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.

The violence also comes as former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds coalition talks after national elections and is likely to form what is expected to be Israel’s most right-wing government.

Police said their initial findings showed that explosive devices were placed at the two sites. The twin blasts occurred amid the buzz of rush hour traffic and police closed part of a main highway leading out of the city, where the first explosion went off.

Video from shortly after the first blast showed debris strewn along the pavement as the wail of ambulances blared.

Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio:

“It was a crazy explosion. There is damage everywhere here.

“I saw people with wounds bleeding all over the place.”

While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombings have become very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.

The Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and once carried out suicide bombings against Israelis, praised the perpetrators of the attacks, calling it a heroic operation, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.

Hamas spokesman Abd al-Latif al-Qanua said: “The occupation is reaping the price of its crimes and aggression against our people.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist legislator who has called for the death penalty for Palestinian attackers and who is set to become the minister in charge of police under Mr Netanyahu, said the attack gave him the impetus to take a tougher stance on Palestinian attackers.

“It’s time to take a hard line against terrorists, it’s time to make order,” he tweeted.

More than 130 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2006. The Israeli army said most of the Palestinians killed have been militants.

However, stone-throwing youths protesting against the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

At least five more Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in recent weeks.

A mob led by members of Pakistan’s radical Islamist party demolished a Hindu temple after setting it on fire in a deeply conservative northwestern town, a senior police official said.

The incident in the town of Karak drew condemnation from human rights activists and Pakistan’s minister for human rights, Shireen Mazari.

Ms Mazari went on Twitter to condemn the burning of the temple and urged police to ensure the arrest of those involved.

District police chief Irfan Ullah said police detained several people over their involvement in the attack on the temple.

Witnesses said the mob, led by activists and local leaders of the radical Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, attacked the temple after local Hindus received permission from authorities to renovate it.

The incident comes weeks after the government allowed minority Hindus to build a new temple in Islamabad on the recommendation of a council of clerics.

Although Muslims and Hindus generally live peacefully together in Pakistan, there have been other attacks on Hindu temples in recent years.

Most of the Pakistan’s minority Hindus migrated to India in 1947 when India was divided by Britain’s government.

A former carpet fitter who made a video inciting a terror attack on London’s Royal Festival Hall and posted it to an extremist WhatsApp group has been jailed for eight-and-a-half years.

Shehroz Iqbal, 29, posted the mobile phone footage to a group of like-minded friends on March 11 this year with the words “Attack, attack”.

Iqbal, of Ilford, east London, had denied encouraging terrorism on WhatsApp and disseminating Islamic State propaganda on Facebook but was convicted after a trial at the Old Bailey.

The court heard the posts had been uncovered on his phone when Iqbal was pulled over later that month for possession of drugs.

During his trial at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Kate Wilkinson described Iqbal as an extremist who was “volatile and prone to act on his extremism”.

He spent an hour-and-a-half at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank near the Royal Festival Hall and Waterloo Bridge making the clip.

In the footage played in court, Iqbal said: “This is my spot Akhi (brothers) Central London. Attack, attack.”

He then sent the video to a WhatsApp group of 22 associates called From Dark To Light.

While on bail for the drugs matters and the video, Iqbal posted a 2015 propaganda video depicting Islamic State fighters on social media.

The court heard that the video, which featured an image of a dead body, was viewed more than 200 times on the defendant’s Facebook page.

On his arrest in April, Iqbal claimed he had been high on drugs when he posted the Facebook video without looking at it.

He explained the video at the Hayward Gallery by saying he had gone for a ride that day and made the film to show off his bike.

He claimed that the reference to “attack attack” was him practising dog commands as he wanted a German Shepherd like a pet named Rocky he had when he lived in Pakistan.

He declined to give evidence at trial.

At his sentencing hearing on Friday, the court heard Iqbal had been subject to two suspended sentences at the time of the offences for harassing members of a synagogue in Gants Hill.

He had put up posters with the words “Jewish sc*m” and “stop the Gaza bombings”, and later sent the synagogue a threatening email when a picture of him was posted on its website.

Iqbal also had a string of previous convictions for shoplifting, threatening behaviour and driving offences, as well as possession of drugs matters stretching back to 2010.

Laurie-Anne Power, for Iqbal, said he had been “seeking the approval” of other people in the WhatsApp group by making and posting the video.

“He was someone who was given very little regard – often dismissed and often ignored,” she said.

“He’s exactly the type of person people with extremist mindsets pray upon,” she said, adding “he felt a sense of belonging to that group for perhaps the first time in his life”.

She said that prior to the offending, Iqbal had sought help from an anti-extremism programme, saying: “I am sitting online all day and watching this material, and it is consuming me.”

Ms Power said Iqbal had turned to drug dealing during the first coronavirus shutdown when he lost his job as a carpet fitter.

She told the court he was so inept he had kept voice memos of all of his conversations with his co-accused and the people he was supposed to be delivering the drugs to.

Jailing him for six years with a three-year extended licence period, Judge Philip Katz QC said: “You have a long history of unpleasant, anti-Semitic threats and harassment.”

Judge Katz said he did not believe Iqbal’s approach to an anti-radicalisation programme to be a “genuine change of attitude”.

“I infer to the criminal standard that when dealing with the authorities you will say whatever you think suits you best at the time,” he said.

He continued: “You blame your offending on everything from drugs to mental issues to your difficulties opening a bank account, and most ironically to you being the subject of racism.

“The irony being your own overt racism, some of it towards other Muslims.”

Judge Katz jailed him for a further 30 months for one count of conspiracy to supply class A drugs and two counts of possession, taking Iqbal’s total custodial sentence to eight-and-a-half years.

Read More: Manchester bomb-plotter held in jail with extremism separation unit

A terrorist who was jailed for plotting an attack inspired by the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby has been found guilty of trying to murder a guard at a top security jail.

Brusthom Ziamani, 25, was jailed for 22 years after he was caught with a hammer and knife en route to behead a soldier in 2014.

While being held at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire, Ziamani befriended radicalised Baz Hockton, 26, and the pair hatched a terror attack behind bars, the Old Bailey heard.

They made makeshift bladed weapons and fake suicide belts to launch a ferocious attack on officer Neil Trundle on January 9.

Two female staff members were hurt as they tried to stop the assault, with left Mr Trundle covered in blood.

Ziamani, originally from Camberwell, south London, had denied attempted murder and an alternative of wounding with intent, but admitted assaulting the two women.

He claimed he wanted to be transferred because Whitemoor had become hostile to Muslims in the wake of former inmate Usman Khan’s attack at Fishmonger Hall.

Hockton, originally from Dagenham, who declined to give evidence, had denied attempted murder but admitted wounding with intent.

An Old Bailey jury deliberated for three hours and nine minutes to find them both guilty of attempted murder.

The court had heard the defendants had lured “kind and helpful” Mr Trundle to a store cupboard on the pretext of asking for a spoon.

They then set upon the officer, targeting his vulnerable head, upper chest and neck areas shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

Ziamani briefly broke off to punch nurse Jayle Cowles and prison officer Georgina Ibbotson before resuming the onslaught on Mr Trundle.

When another officer approached, Ziamani opened his jacket to expose the fake suicide belt, and said: “I’ve got a bomb.”

Meanwhile, Hockton was seen on graphic CCTV footage to charge at another officer before both inmates were restrained.

An examination of the fake suicide belts revealed one had been constructed with a battery and pressurised can and the other was made from boxer short elastic, electrical cable and plastic bottles.

Mr Trundle was left covered in blood, with blood on the walls around him, having suffered cuts to his scalp, arm and shoulder.

Reliving the attack, Mr Trundle, who has 14 years’ prisons experience, said: “Before I knew it I was on the floor on my back.

“I did not see any weapons. I could feel blows coming down on me.

“I did not realise how bad the damage was to myself until I went to the hospital and looked in the mirror.”

Mr Trundle denied there was any anti-Muslim feeling at Whitemoor over the deaths of two Cambridge students at Fishmonger Hall.

He said staff had been advised on appropriate behaviour after he heard the term “raghead” used to describe Muslims once.

Prosecutor Annabel Darlow QC had told jurors the attack was terrorist-related.

Ziamani’s plan to become a “martyr” was spelled out in handwritten notes.

In a note found in a cell search, Hockton had written: “Can’t stand anything in uniform and if I see a cop on the wing I’m stick a spike in his head like a unicorn.” (sic)

Ms Darlow told jurors Ziamani’s previous conviction demonstrated he had wanted to kill a British officer for “terrorist purposes”.

She said: “The prosecution say this is exactly what happened in the case, albeit transplanted from the outside world where Mr Ziamani had greater access to weapons and targets to the more limited confines of the prison environment.”

Giving evidence, Ziamani denied it was a terror attack, saying he only wanted to inflict some damage, like a bloody nose, to get sent to a different prison.

The two men did not react as the jury’s verdict was read out, but could be seen smiling as they were sent to the cells.

The judge, Mrs Justice May, listed the case for sentence at 2pm on Thursday.

Following the verdicts, Mr Trundle said: “I thank those colleagues of mine who risked their lives coming to my aid on that terrible day. If it was not for their bravery and instant response, I am convinced I would not be here today.”

Commander Richard Smith, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said: “This was a calculated and horrific attack by two prisoners who had one aim – to try and murder prison staff.

“I would like to pay tribute to the outstanding professionalism and bravery of the courageous prison staff who responded to the incident. Their quick and selfless actions saved the life of their colleague that day. My thoughts are also with the other victims of this attack who also were injured during this incident.”

A Prison Service spokesperson added: “We welcome today’s verdicts and pay tribute to Prison Officer Trundle and all the staff that responded to this incident with such courage and dedication.

“Attacks on our hardworking staff are not be tolerated and we will always push for the strongest punishment.”

Read more: Prison officer tells jurors how he fought off convicted terrorist Brusthom Ziamani

Senior British political figures joined faith and community leaders on Tuesday to commemorate the anniversary of an attack by a far-right extremist who drove a van into Muslim worshippers leaving a London mosque.

Darren Osborne, 48, ploughed his rental van into a crowd leaving Ramadan prayers in Finsbury Park, north London, in the early hours of June 19 last year, killing 51-year-old father of four Makram Ali and injuring 12 others, two seriously.

Authorities said it was the fourth deadly terrorism incident in Britain last year, following three Islamist attacks which killed 35 people.

On Tuesday, the British capital’s mayor Sadiq Khan was joined by the opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and interior minister Sajid Javid and figures from the local community for a minute’s silence outside Islington Town Hall.

“It’s a time to support and pray for the victims,” said Toufik Kacimi, the chief executive of the Muslim Welfare House whose worshippers were targeted in the attack.

“It’s also a time to reflect on the outstanding response from the community. We believe the terrorists will never win and this is shared by the British people of this country as seen by their messages of peace, love and tranquillity.”

Osborne, who was jailed for at least 43 years in February, had become obsessed with Muslims after watching a BBC TV drama about a child sex abuse scandal involving British Pakistani men.

He told his trial he had initially wanted to kill Corbyn and Khan, a Muslim, at a march in central London but had been thwarted by road closures.

“Last year’s cowardly attack which targeted innocent worshippers leaving Finsbury Park Mosque was an attack on all of us,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement. “As with all acts of terrorism, the intention was to divide us. But we will not let this happen.”

We have been highlighting the attacks and incitement against minority communities form some time. Just within the last 2 months, we highlighted Islamist extremism targeting members of Ahmaddiya communities in Pakistan. A few days ago, the small Christian community in Quetta, who were celebrating mass in the coming days to Christmas, were attacked and 9 people were killed in an Islamic State inspired attack. 

A few days ago, Iraq’s Christian communities in Telesqaf could celebrate mass for the first time after the Islamic State’s defeat. Then today, a devastating attack, once again, on the Coptic Christian community on the outskirts of Cairo. 

The attack at the church in Mar Mina, on the outskirts of Cairo, has left 9 people dead and with 2 gunmen opening fire on the church. Egyptian security forces are stepping up their patrols and visibility as Coptic Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7th 2018. 

This is not the first time that such attacks have been targeted at Egypt’s Coptic community and sadly, it may not be the last. There is a connection with all of these attacks since Islamist extremism has been the driving force. In Pakistan, Iraq and Egypt, groups inspired by it have attacked churches and congregations at prayer. Yet, Islamist extremism does not only attack other faiths, it attacks minorities within – such as Shia and Ahmaddiya communities. In fact, anyone beyond what Islamist extremists regard as being ‘true Muslims’ is in their eyes, liable to be attacked. 

As we move into 2018, it is essential that civil society groups who value human rights, challenge not only the causes of all forms of extremism, but also the ideology that drives them. The latter is essential given that extremism turns on the most vulnerable communities in society.

Manchester, Westminster and now London Bridge. Many lives, families and communities deeply affected by the actions of Islamist terrorists who have tried to attack the peace of our country. The list sadly continues on as 6 are reported to have been murdered last night by what looks like another Islamist terrorist attack.

It is clear that Islamic State has influenced some of the actions of terrorists through calls to disrupt and harm people and communities by the use of vehicles and knives. This fits into the modus operandi of the terrorists that attacked London yesterday.

At this time, we ask that people reflect and think about those who have died and who have been injured. There will be lost of commentary in the coming days about extremism and terrorism, though at this time, we need to remember the many who have been murdered on our streets because of such attacks.

London will remain strong and resilient. This does not mean that we are weak or complacent as a City. What it means is that it redoubles our joint efforts to tackle the extremist rhetoric that fuels terrorism, as well as working closely with law enforcement agencies.

British police said they had arrested two men on Saturday as they stepped up their efforts to capture a suspected network behind the suicide bomber who killed 22 people in Manchester earlier this week.

Officers used a controlled explosion to gain entry to the address in the north of the city where the latest arrests were made. Detectives are now questioning 11 men over the attack by Salman Abedi at a pop concert in Manchester on Monday.

Some hours later, police cordoned off a large area in the Moss Side area of south Manchester and houses were evacuated with a bomb disposal unit sent to the scene.

A man working in a local shop, who declined to be named, told Reuters he saw three men being taken away from the address.

“As part of an ongoing search at a property in Moss Side an evacuation is currently being carried in the area,” police said in a statement.

While Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer said police were confident that they had made “immense” progress and had apprehended a “large part of the network”, extra armed officers will be on duty across the country with security stepped up at some 1,300 events over the long holiday weekend.

Britain remains on its highest threat level of critical, meaning an attack is expected imminently, with the army backing up police and hospitals across the country have told staff to be ready for another incident.

The Times newspaper reported on Saturday that intelligence officers had identified 23,000 jihahist extremists living in Britain.

Earlier this week a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters the security services were managing 500 active operations involving some 3,000 people who were thought to pose a threat.

However, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the UK police chief for counter-terrorism, advised people to be vigilant but to “go out as you planned and enjoy yourselves”.

There are a number of high-profile events over the weekend including soccer cup finals in London and Glasgow, and the Great Manchester Run.

While police and politicians have praised communities in Manchester for their reaction to the bombing, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable said there had been a rise in reported hate crimes, from an average of 28 to 56 incidents on Wednesday.

“We can’t directly link these to the events of Monday night and are continuing to monitor the situation,” he said.

Political campaigning for the June 8 national election which was suspended after the Manchester attack resumed on Friday with the bombing becoming a central feature.

The opposition Labour Party, emboldened by a rise in opinion polls, argued that Britain’s foreign policy had increased the risk of attacks and criticised Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May for cutting spending on policing.

May said Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was saying Britain was to blame for the bombing.

“I want to make one thing very clear to Jeremy Corbyn and to you, and it is that there can never, ever be an excuse for terrorism,” she said at a summit of Group of Seven leaders in Sicily.

A poll on Thursday put May’s Conservatives five points ahead of Labour suggesting a far tighter race than previously anticipated.