Two men were jailed on Friday for plotting to kill hundreds in an Islamic State-inspired attack on the Jewish community in England, a plan prosecutors said could have been deadlier than December’s mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, were both convicted after a trial at Preston Crown Court, which began a week after an unrelated deadly attack on a synagogue in the city of Manchester, in northwest England.

Prosecutors said the pair were Islamist extremists who wanted to use automatic firearms to kill as many Jews as they could in an attack in Manchester.

They were found guilty little more than a week after a mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in which 15 people were killed.

Prosecutor Harpreet Sandhu said on Friday that, had Saadaoui and Hussein carried out their plan, it “could have been very much more serious” than the attacks in Australia and Manchester.

Judge Mark Wall sentenced Saadaoui to a minimum term of 37 years and Hussein to a minimum term of 26 years, saying: “You were very close to being ready to carry out this plan.”

Hussein refused to attend his sentencing, having refused to attend most of his trial, which Wall said reflected Hussein’s cowardice, describing him as “brave enough to plan to threaten an unarmed group with an AK-47 but not sufficiently courageous to face up to what he did.”

POTENTIALLY ONE OF DEADLIEST ATTACKS ON UK SOIL

Saadaoui had arranged for two assault rifles, an automatic pistol and almost 200 rounds of ammunition to be smuggled into Britain through the port of Dover when he was arrested in May 2024, Sandhu told jurors at the trial.

He added that Saadaoui planned to obtain two more rifles and another pistol, and to collect at least 900 rounds of ammunition.

“This would likely have been one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever carried out on British soil,” Wall said.

Unbeknown to Saadaoui, however, a man known as “Farouk,” from whom he was trying to get the weapons, was an undercover operative who helped foil the plot.

Walid Saadaoui’s brother Bilel Saadaoui, 37, was found guilty of failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in jail.

A feud between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates across the Horn of Africa is overshadowing this weekend’s African Union summit, though most of the continent’s leaders will try to avoid taking sides, nine diplomats and experts said.

What began as a rivalry in Yemen has spread across the Red Sea into a region riven with conflicts – from war in Somalia and Sudan to rivalry between Ethiopia and Eritrea and a divided Libya.

In recent years, the UAE has become an influential player in the Horn – encompassing primarily Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti – through multi-billion-dollar investments, robust diplomacy and discreet military support.

Saudi Arabia has been more low-profile but diplomats say Riyadh is building an alliance that includes Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.

“Saudi has woken up and realized that they might lose the Red Sea,” a senior African diplomat told Reuters. “They have been sleeping all along while UAE was doing its thing in the Horn.”

Initially focused on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden – both crucial shipping routes, the rivalry is now reaching further inland.

“Today it is in Somalia, but it is also playing out in Sudan, Sahel and elsewhere,” the diplomat said.

COMPELLED TO CHOOSE A SIDE

While these conflicts have strong local drivers, Gulf involvement is forcing countries, regions and even warlords to choose a side, diplomats said.

Michael Woldemariam, a Horn of Africa expert at the University of Maryland, said regional actors, including Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), have grown uneasy with the UAE’s “muscular” foreign policy.

“Saudis may seek to limit or curtail UAE in the Horn but, it remains to see how that will play out,” he said. “UAE has a lot of leverage across the region – it has this expeditionary military presence and dense financial linkages.”

Saudi officials say UAE activities in Yemen and the Horn threaten their national security.

Senior Emirati officials say their strategy strengthens states against extremists, while U.N. experts and Western officials argue it has sometimes fueled conflict and empowered authoritarian leaders, charges the UAE denies.

The officials and diplomats interviewed in this story declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

AVOIDING A BRAWL BETWEEN GULF POWERS

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland’s independence bid is the starkest example so far of tensions being stoked.

Somalia has cut all ties with Abu Dhabi, accusing it of influencing Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. Mogadishu has since signed a defense agreement with Qatar, while Turkey sent fighter jets to the capital in a show of force.

Tensions are also rising between African Union host Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea, which have been on the verge of war for months. Eritrea’s leader recently visited Saudi Arabia, a trip that analysts perceived as signaling Saudi backing.

UAE and Saudi Arabia back opposing sides in Sudan’s war, all the sources and experts interviewed said. The UAE is accused of providing logistical support to the RSF paramilitary, while states in line with Saudi Arabia largely back the SAF.

Egypt, a Saudi ally, has deployed Turkish-made drones along its border with SAF and used them to strike RSF in Sudan, security officials said.

Analysts said Ethiopia benefits from UAE support, and Reuters found this week that Ethiopia is hosting a base in western Ethiopia where RSF fighters are recruited and trained.

Ethiopia has not publicly commented on the story.

‘ACTING THROUGH ALLIES AND PROXIES’

Across the region, Saudi Arabia often acts through allies and proxies rather than directly, experts said.

Woldemariam said African countries were likely to tread carefully.

“Even those actors in the Horn who were alarmed by UAE influence may be cautious about how much they want to be caught up in a brawl between these two Gulf powers,” he said.

The Horn is not the only crisis on the AU summit’s agenda.

War continues in Democratic Republic of Congo, and al Qaeda- and Islamic State-linked insurgencies are spreading across the Sahel region.

But those conflicts are still likely to take a back seat to the Horn.

Alex Rondos, the EU’s former special representative for the region, said the Horn had become a subsidiary arena for Middle East rivalries.

“Do the Saudis and UAE … fully grasp the implications?” he said. “Will the Horn of Africa allow itself to be broken into pieces by these foreign rivalries and their African accomplices?”

The US military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two US officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”

Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. US officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.

Trump, speaking to US troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.

Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of US firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces. In Venezuela, Trump demonstrated a willingness to rely also on special operations forces to seize that country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, in a raid last month.

Asked for comment on the preparations for a potentially sustained US military operation, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said: “President Trump has all options on the table with regard to Iran.”

“He listens to a variety of perspectives on any given issue, but makes the final decision based on what is best for our country and national security,” Kelly said.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

The United States sent two aircraft carriers to the region last year, when it carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

However, June’s “Midnight Hammer” operation was essentially a one-off US attack, with stealth bombers flying from the United States to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran staged a very limited retaliatory strike on a US base in Qatar.

RISKS INCREASING

The planning underway this time is more complex, the officials said.

In a sustained campaign, the US military could hit Iranian state and security facilities, not just nuclear infrastructure, one of the officials said. The official declined to provide specific detail.

Experts say the risks to US forces would be far greater in such an operation against Iran, which boasts a formidable arsenal of missiles. Retaliatory Iranian strikes also increase the risk of a regional conflict.

The same official said the United States fully expected Iran to retaliate, leading to back-and-forth strikes and reprisals over a period of time.

The White House and Pentagon did not respond to questions about the risks of retaliation or regional conflict.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and crushing of internal dissent. On Thursday, he warned the alternative to a diplomatic solution would “be very traumatic, very traumatic.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have warned that in case of strikes on Iranian territory, they could retaliate against any US military base.

The US maintains bases throughout the Middle East, including in Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Trump for talks in Washington on Wednesday, saying that if an agreement with Iran were reached, “it must include the elements that are vital to Israel.”

Iran has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions, but has ruled out linking the issue to missiles.