Man sentenced to life for defence academy terror plot

A man who plotted a terrorist attack on a British military base with the perpetrator of the Manchester synagogue massacre has been sentenced to life in prison. Mohammad Bashir, 31, was ordered to serve a minimum of 17 years at Manchester Crown Court on Thursday, July 23, 2026, after pleading guilty last month to preparing an act of terrorism.

Bashir drove his friend, Jihad AlShamie, on a 10-hour round trip from Manchester to conduct hostile reconnaissance at the UK Defence Academy in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, on August 14, 2025. The pair spent just 13 minutes at the site, which trains thousands of British and international military and government personnel, with AlShamie making notes on his phone under the title "espionage." Both men later disposed of their phones, but investigators accessed cloud data linked to the devices.

Weeks later, on October 2, 2025, AlShamie, a Syrian-born UK citizen, was shot dead by police after carrying out a terrorist attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester. He drove a car into the synagogue gates and attacked worshippers with a knife while wearing a fake suicide belt, killing two men: Melvin Cravitz, 66, and Adrian...