A British man has admitted a terrorism-related offence after helping the perpetrator of a fatal attack on a Manchester synagogue conduct reconnaissance at a UK military site, prosecutors
said on Friday.
Mohammad Asim Bashir, 31, pleaded guilty at London's Old Bailey to assisting Jihad Al-Shamie by driving him to the UK Defence Academy in Oxfordshire in August 2025, where reconnaissance activity was carried out.
The admission comes months after Al-Shamie launched a deadly attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester in October 2025. According to authorities, Al-Shamie drove a vehicle into pedestrians before attacking people with a knife.
One victim died from stab wounds during the assault, while another man was mistakenly shot and killed by police responding to the incident.
Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent, told investigators he was acting on behalf of the Islamic State militant group before he was fatally shot by officers.
Police said when Bashir was charged that the offence relating to the reconnaissance visit was not directly connected to the synagogue attack itself. However, the guilty plea establishes Bashir's role in assisting Al-Shamie during an earlier terrorism-related activity.
The case remains part of ongoing efforts by British authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding one of the country's most serious extremist attacks in recent years. Photo by Paul Townley, Wikimedia commons.
