Syria has carried out pre-emptive operations targeting Islamic State cells – arresting 71 people during 61 raids.

Explosives and weapons were seized, with the interior ministry revealing they were working on “precise” intelligence information.

“Many” of those detained were wanted criminals, with forces obtaining evidence that linked them to terrorist activities.

A statement added that the operation was part of “ongoing national efforts to combat terrorism and confront plots targeting the country’s security and citizens”.

The raids come as Syrian President Ahmed al Sharaa travels to Washington for a meeting with Donald Trump, where he will join a coalition against IS.

Meanwhile, the US is preparing to establish a military presence in Damascus to enable a security pact that is being brokered between Syria and Israel.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, officials intercepted information that suggested Islamic State was planning to launch new attacks.

Interior ministry spokesman Nour al Din al Baba told al Ekhbariya: “The current major threat lies in IS’ attempts to reconstitute itself and recruit new members, particularly among the youth.”

Former president Bashar al Assad was ousted late last year after 25 years in power and fled to Russia after his regime came to an end.

Since then, al Sharaa’s transitional administration has been attempting to restore security, introduce economic reforms, and cooperate with international partners.

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On Friday, the UK and US removed sanctions against al Sharaa – following in the footsteps of the UN Security Council.

The State Department said this was “in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership”, including work to counter narcotics and eliminate chemical weapons.

Al Sharaa had faced a travel ban, asset freeze and an arms embargo for well over a decade because he was previously affiliated with al Qaeda.

When 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana got into a taxi on 29 July last year, it was the first time he’d left the family home on his own in more than two years.

His troubling behaviour and obsession with violence had brought him into contact with police, including counter-terrorism officers, the criminal justice system, social services, and mental health professionals over the previous five years.

His degree-educated, Christian parents, Alphonse Rudakubana and Laetitia Muzayire, were used to his violent outbursts, knew he had bought a small arsenal of weapons online, and had a history of carrying knives.

They thought he posed a threat to his father and older brother, but say they never thought he was capable of carrying out the mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class – killing Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and injuring eight other children and two adults.

From the evidence that’s emerged at the public inquiry into the atrocity in the Lancashire seaside town, it seems obvious he would carry out an attack, raising serious questions about why so many opportunities were missed to stop him.

Harrowing accounts

When the inquiry started at Liverpool Town Hall in July, a little under a year after the murders, we heard harrowing accounts from those who were in the upstairs dance studio in the Hart Space, when Rudakubana walked through the door armed with a 20cm chef’s knife.

There were tales of extreme bravery – among them an already badly injured girl stabbed another six times in the back when she tried to defend her younger sister, and John Hayes, the businessman stabbed after running from his office next door to tackle the attacker.

Others regretted not doing more – taxi driver Gary Poland, who took Rudakubana to the scene, apologised after the inquiry heard he drove off as children’s screams rang out and didn’t call police for 50 minutes.

The teacher who organised the event, Leanne Lucas, 36, who was badly injured and first to call 999, said there was nothing she could have done to keep the children safe after “multiple organisations” had failed to stop the killer.

‘Visceral sense of dread’

Rudakubana lived in Cardiff with his parents, who were granted asylum in the UK after fleeing the Rwandan genocide, and his older brother Dion before the family moved to Southport in 2013.

His family told how his behaviour rapidly deteriorated when he was in Year 8, as he became withdrawn and isolated and prone to regular violent outbursts at home.

He was expelled from Range High School, in Formby, Lancashire, in October 2019 after calling Childline to say he was carrying a knife into school because he wanted to kill a boy he said was bullying him.

He was then sent to The Acorns School in Ormskirk, a pupil referral unit, where the headteacher Joanne Hodson felt a “visceral sense of dread” like “he was building up to something”.

When she asked him why he had taken a knife to his former school, “he looked me in the eyes and said ‘to use it’,” she said. “This is the only time in my career that a pupil has said this to me or behaved in a manner so devoid of any remorse.”

Assessed as ‘medium risk’

She feared Rudakubana was going to “bring something” to The Acorns, but he instead took a taxi back to Range High School in December 2019, carrying a knife in his bag, and attacked a boy in the corridor with a hockey stick after he couldn’t find the supposed bully.

On 19 February 2020, then aged 13, he received a 10-month referral order after pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, possession of an offensive weapon in a public place and possession of a bladed article. It was his only criminal conviction before the Southport attack.

The order required him to take courses and participate in education but most of his contact with the Lancashire council youth offending team (YOT) was by phone during the first COVID lockdown and social workers had just three 30-minute face-to-face sessions to address his behaviour.

Rudakubana was assessed as “medium risk” and despite repeatedly refusing to see social workers, no enforcement action was taken, while two days before his case was closed, on 19 January 2021, it was noted his dad had slapped him in an argument.

The inquiry heard Mr Rudakubana had been kicked in the groin by his son, who threatened to break his laptop in one of his regular violent outbursts at home, which could be triggered by losing an argument or a visit from social workers.

His mum said she felt “physically unwell” when he would smash things, while her husband said he was “ashamed” he became “conditioned to his behaviour, allowed him to abuse and assault me” because “any attempt to impose discipline” was met with an “escalation”.

In November 2021, Rudakubana “trashed” his parents’ house, leading to his mother calling the police and, in another incident, kicked his father and threw a plate at a rental car, damaging the windscreen, again leading to his parents calling the police.

Teachers ‘lost faith’ in anti-terrorism programme

Meanwhile, staff at The Acorns made three referrals to the government’s anti-terror programme Prevent between 2019 and 2021 because he was looking at material about “school mass shootings” and talking about guns and beheadings.

He had also referred to the Manchester Arena attack as a “good battle” and researched the London Bridge terrorist attack, although it later emerged he had anti-Islamic cartoons on his laptop along with graphic images of dead bodies.

Every time his case was closed because he did not seem to have any clear ideology, even though the Home Office had alerted Prevent workers to the threat of those interested in school shootings.

When Rudakubana made comments thought to be antisemitic in January 2022, teachers did not make another Prevent referral as the head said they’d “lost faith that anything would be done”.

His parents said they hid the kitchen knives at home after the Range High School attack, but on 17 March 2022, Rudakubana, then 15, was found on a bus with a small kitchen knife after refusing to pay the fare. He told police he wanted to stab someone and said, “I’ve also thought about poisoning people”.

But instead of being arrested and charged, he was treated as a vulnerable person and taken home by officers who made a referral for social services and mental health support. It was the last time he left home alone before the attack.

‘Struggling to cope’

Lancashire council’s children and family wellbeing service closed a series of four cases designed to support the family dealing with Rudakubana, and the attempts to get him to leave his house and go to school ended 10 months before the attack because he was refusing to see them.

Presfield Specialist High School, which specialises in pupils with autism, agreed to take Rudakubana on as a pupil in March 2022, but despite repeated attempts to get him to turn to play basketball or eat pizza, his attendance was only 0.7% over two years. He was removed from the roll a month before the attack.

His father told the school attendance team that he would “pay the price” if staff were allowed into the house and his mother “flatly refused” to let them see her son, the inquiry heard.

Police were called to the family home after another 999 call in the early hours of 14 May 2022, after Rudakubana threw food and tried to flood the house after an argument about access to his laptop.

Officers recorded that Rudakubana’s parents were “struggling to cope” and had agreed to contact Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and the GP.

Rudakubana was first referred to Alder Hey by his GP in August 2019, but waited 77 weeks for an autism diagnosis.

Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (FCAMHS) declined to assess his risk to himself and others without the diagnosis, and in the end he was only treated for anxiety.

‘Trust me, I will kill you’

One consultant psychologist said she no longer “felt safe” working with Rudakubana’s father, who admitted withholding “some” information about his son’s violence to CAMHS, which was assessing his risk to himself and others.

Another, Dr Anthony Molyneux, told the inquiry Rudakubana “presented, in essence, as an unremarkable, sullen, untalkative, gawky teenage boy.”

However, in an incident in early 2024, Rudakubana poured a bottle of oil over his father and told him: “Trust me, I will kill you.”

Rudakubana was discharged from Alder Hey CAMHS on 23 July 2024, just six days before the attack, with a document recording: “Poses risk to others: None,” although they knew he hadn’t left the house for five months, was refusing to wash and was not eating properly.

The previous day, Rudakubana had burst into his father’s bedroom brandishing a kitchen knife identical to the one used in the mass stabbing and jabbed it into the bed.

He asked about the Range, where it was the last day of term, and if Mr Rudakubana would get him petrol.

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Foiled ‘arson attack’ at old school

His father refused before begging a taxi driver not to take his son to his old school, where he believed he planned to carry out an arson attack, and Rudakubana threatened him, warning: “Next time, if you stop me, there will be consequences.”

His bedroom was usually “off limits”, but on the evening of 22 July last year, he allowed his parents in to clean it.

Mr Rudakubana told the inquiry his wife was “petrified” when they found a bow and arrow, what is now thought to be his attempt to prepare a crude version of the deadly poison ricin, and firecrackers under his bed.

His son had ordered castor seeds, concentrated alcohol and laboratory apparatus from Amazon between January and February 2022.

Using stolen ID, Rudakubana also bought three machetes – two which were intercepted by his father – and two kitchen knives, one of which he used in the attack, which Mr Rudakubana is also thought to have accepted delivery of in what he accepted was a “serious breach” of his duty as a parent.

‘I’m desperately sorry,’ says father

Mr Rudakubana said he was worried his son would be taken into care and his fear of him “prevented him from doing things a parent would normally do”, such as restricting internet activity and ordering weapons online, which “had catastrophic consequences for which I’m desperately sorry“.

“I accept I bear my share of the responsibility and that by not challenging his behaviour he was allowed to acquire dangerous weapons and view inappropriate content online,” he said.

Six minutes before he left home on 29 July, Rudakubana searched X for an attack on a bishop in Sydney by an alleged teenage terrorist.

Self-described “free speech warrior” Deanna Romina Khananisho, the social media firm’s head of global government, gave evidence to the inquiry defending the company’s decision not to remove the video, which is still available, despite requests from the UK and Australian authorities.

Wanted to ‘hurt society’

Lancashire Police Assistant Chief Constable Mark Winstanley warned there are many young men viewing similar material to Rudakubana and said he fears there could be another attack.

After leaving the house on 29 July last year, Rudakubana went for a walk, called taxis and came back to the outside of the house before finally taking a cab to the Hart Space.

His brother Dion said their mum found knife packaging in the washing machine but both parents said they thought he’d gone for a walk – despite having not gone out alone since he was caught with a knife in March 2022.

Rudakubana’s mother and father could offer no motive for the target, but his brother – who compared him to the “sociopath” killer played by Javier Bardem in the film No Country For Old Men – suggested it was because “children are very valuable to society” and it would “hurt society very badly” if children were to be harmed.

Rudakubana has been jailed for life with a minimum of 52 years and the inquiry chairman, Sir Adrian Fulford, hopes to deliver his report on the first phase by spring.

But the parents of the girls who died have already seen enough to reach conclusions, calling for Rudakubana’s parents, and every agency involved to be held to account.

Bebe’s parents, Lauren and Ben King, said it’s “been painfully clear that Bebe was failed at every possible turn”.

The chief inspector of prisons has said the recent spate of prisoners being released too early is “a symptom of a system that is close to breaking point”. 

Charlie Taylor’s assessment comes as it is revealed that two prisoners wrongly released last year are still at large, as are two others believed to have been freed in error in June this year.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Taylor said the growing number of mistaken early releases was “embarrassing and potentially dangerous”.

He also put it down to “an overcomplicated sentencing framework” and described it as “a symptom of a system that is close to breaking point”.

He said prison inspections “repeatedly highlight the failure to keep prisons secure, safe and decent, and to provide the sort of activity that will help inmates get work on release”.

In his opinion piece, the chief inspector pointed to successive governments’ responses to the overcrowding crisis in the system, which put pressure on “junior prison staff who repeatedly had to recalculate every prisoner’s release date”.

These calculations, he wrote, had been made harder by a series of early-release schemes brought in by successive governments.

The changes, he said, “increase the likelihood of mistakes and in three years the number of releases in error has gone up from around 50 a year to 262”.

It comes as ministers face mounting pressure over a series of high-profile manhunts, with Justice Secretary David Lammy admitting on Friday there is a “mountain to climb” to tackle the crisis in the prison system.

Algerian sex offender Brahim Kaddour-Cherif, 24, was arrested on Friday after a police search following his release from HMP Wandsworth in south London last week, which Scotland Yard said officers only found out about on Tuesday.

His recapture was partly down to investigative work by Sky’s national correspondent, Tom Parmenter, who tracked Kaddour-Cherif down to Finsbury Park in north London before he handed himself in to police.

Convicted fraudster Billy Smith, 35, handed himself back in on Thursday after being accidentally freed from the same jail on Monday.

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It follows the mistaken release of Hadush Kebatu, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman while living in an asylum hotel. The incidents sparked protests in Epping, Essex.

Prison security checks have been toughened and an independent investigation into mistaken releases launched after the now-deported Ethiopian national was accidentally freed from HMP Chelmsford on 24 October.

A total of 262 inmates were mistakenly let out in the year to March 2025 – a 128% increase on the 115 in the previous 12 months, according to the latest official figures.

Of the total, 90 releases in error were of violent or sex offenders.

Kaddour-Cherif was serving a sentence for trespass with intent to steal, but had previously been convicted for indecent exposure.

He is understood to have overstayed his visitor’s visa to the UK after arriving in 2019, and was in the process of being deported.

Asked about the four missing prisoners on Friday, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick said: “The chaos continues. The government keeps putting the British people at risk and is relentlessly failing victims. Does anyone have confidence in David Lammy?”

Mr Lammy said on Friday: “We inherited a prison system in crisis, and I’m appalled at the rate of releases in error this is causing.

“I’m determined to grip this problem, but there is a mountain to climb which cannot be done overnight.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said releases in error “have been increasing for several years and are another symptom of a justice system crisis inherited by this government”.

In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it has introduced “mandatory, stronger prisoner release checks to keep our streets safe and protect the public as well as investing record amounts into our courts – including to improve operational assurance.

“We’re also investing billions, reforming sentencing and building the prison places needed to keep the public safe.”