• Complaints watchdog carrying out investigation into what happened
• UK on ‘high alert’
• Deputy PM heckled by people at a vigil outside the synagogue

MANCHESTER: As Britain was on heightened alert on Friday, police said they accidentally shot a victim who died in the attack on a synagogue in Manchester, as well as one of the survivors, as they attempted to stop an attacker who appeared to be wearing an explosive belt.

In Thursday’s attack two men, Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cra­vitz, 66, were killed after a British man of Syrian descent drove a car into pedestrians and then began stabbing people outside Manch­es­t­er’s Heaton Park Hebrew Cong­regation Synagogue during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

The attacker, shot dead by officers at the scene, was not carrying a firearm, said Greater Manchester Police chief constable Steve Watson, though one of those killed suffered a gunshot wound.

“It follows therefore this injury may have been sustained as a tragic and unforeseen consequence of the urgently required action taken by my officers to bring this vicious attack to an end”, Watson said in a statement.

Watson said another worshipper is believed to have suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound, and that it is thought both victims were close together behind the synagogue door, as worshippers tried to prevent the attacker from gaining entry.

The police complaints watchdog said it was carrying out an investigation into what happened.

Police have named the attacker as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, and said they could find no records to show he had been referred to the government’s anti-radicalisation programme.

In a statement on Facebook, Shamie’s family said they were in “profound shock” and wanted to distance themselves from what they called his “heinous act”.

The British government vowed to redouble its efforts to tackle antisemitism as the Jewish community reeled from the attack.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited the site of the attack and spoke with police and ambulance workers, praising “the degree of professionalism and speed” they showed in their response.

When Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy spoke at a vigil outside the synagogue on Friday, he was heckled by people who said “Jews don’t want to live here anymore” and urged him to stop the pro-Palestinian marches that have taken place in British cities regularly since the start of the Gaza war.

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood confirmed on Friday the country was on “high alert”, with increased “police resources” deployed across the country.

“Our priority is making sure that our citizens here at home are safe,” she told Sky News.

Britain, like other European countries and the United States, has recorded a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in the nearly two years since Gaza conflict began.

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2025