Mohammad Bashir smiled to his family as he was led from the dock of Manchester Crown Court. Moments earlier the 31-year-old had been jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years for plotting a terrorist attack on a British military base alongside the man who would later carry out the Heaton Park Synagogue massacre.
Bashir, from Cheetham Hill, pleaded guilty to preparing an act of terrorism. In August 2025 he drove his friend Jihad Al-Shamie on a 10-hour round trip to the UK Defence Academy in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, where the pair conducted hostile reconnaissance. They stopped for just 13 minutes, with Al-Shamie noting security arrangements on his phone under the title “espionage”. Both disposed of their phones after the trip, but police retrieved cloud data showing Al-Shamie had searched for “weapons, potential target sites, and individuals with links to the Israeli military”.
“Mohammad Bashir jailed for life for plotting attack on military base with Manchester synagogue attacker Jihad Al-Shamie.”
Sentencing Bashir, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb told him he had become a “firmly committed jihadist” and that he and Al-Shamie were “equally engaged” in planning an attack “in which you and he expected to kill and be killed”. She rejected his claim to a probation officer that he no longer held extremist views, saying: “I consider you remain dangerous. You have given no grounds that your attitude has really changed at all.”
Two months after the Shrivenham trip, on 2 October 2025, Al-Shamie attacked Heaton Park Synagogue on Yom Kippur, killing two Jewish men before being shot dead by police. Counter-terror officers uncovered Bashir’s friendship with Al-Shamie only after reviewing his phones following the attack. But those phones were not the first to be seized.
Greater Manchester Police’s chief constable, Sir Stephen Watson, has now apologised, admitting a “missed opportunity”. Al-Shamie had been arrested in February and September 2025, and his mobile devices were seized on both occasions. Watson said the data on them was “substantial in respect of evidencing an extremist mindset” but was not examined before the synagogue attack. “There can however be little doubt that the information contained within these devices would have inspired further investigative action,” he said. “I am deeply sorry.”
The police watchdog, the IOPC, is now reviewing GMP’s past investigations into Al-Shamie. CCTV footage of Bashir and Al-Shamie discussing plans for the Oxfordshire attack was presented in court. In WhatsApp conversations, the pair made frequent antisemitic remarks and discussed preparing for “war”. The judge’s words echoed the gravity of the case: Bashir remains dangerous, and the police are left to reckon with what might have been.