MANCHESTER, England (AP) — An assailant drove a car into people outside a synagogue Thursday in northern England and then began stabbing them, killing two and seriously hurting at least three in what police called a terrorist attack on the holiest day of the Jewish year.
Officers shot and killed the suspect at the synagogue in Manchester, police said, though authorities took some time to confirm he was dead because he was wearing a vest that made it appear as if he had explosives. Police later said he did not have a bomb.
The Metropolitan Police force in London, which leads the nation’s counter-terrorism policing operations, declared the rampage a terrorist attack.
Authorities said the man believed responsible was a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent named Jihad Al-Shamie, who entered the U.K. as a young child and became a citizen in 2006. An initial check of records showed he was not part of a U.K. counter-terror program that tries to identify people at risk for being radicalized.
Police also said three people were arrested on suspicion of acts of terrorism. They are two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s.
