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Posted on 06/27/2026 4:09:33 AM PDT by dennisw
At the end of a timeworn street just north of Rochdale town centre sits a row of red-brick terraced houses, of which all but one appear indistinguishable.
The exception bears a cluster of hi-tech security cameras that wouldn't look out of place in a bank, for instance, or a police station. And for good reason.
What happened in this two-up, two-down was shocking but sadly typical of the feud then raging between rival organised crime groups (OCGs) that blighted this Greater Manchester town, a once proud textiles powerhouse.
Last week, a court heard that at around 11.40pm on May 22, 2021, two masked men forced their way inside the house and ran up the stairs to where 27-year-old Abbas Mushtaq was asleep in bed.
He woke to find the two men slashing at him with a sword and a machete, swinging the blades from every angle, or so it seemed to Mushtaq, who could only shield his face with his hands. He would later recall his sisters screaming and the sight of 'blood everywhere'.
Quite possibly Mushtaq's life was saved by his mother Zahida, who put herself between her son and the attackers. Then she grabbed the sword only for it to be snatched back, wounding Zahida's wrist in the process.
Still, she fought on. Grappling with the attacker, Zahida seized his arm and the sword ended up 'stuck in the wall'.
After prising it free, the two men ran away. Critically wounded, Mushtaq spent ten days in hospital and was treated for life-changing injuries to his hands, face and upper body. Some of the cuts went right to the bone while others severed tendons.
Five months after he was attacked the Smiler OCG, to which he was affiliated, launched an equally sickening retaliatory assault on getaway driver Alam. On the evening of October 5, 2021, he was driving a VW Golf when it was rammed and flipped three or four times before an 'armed gang' surrounded him, wielding a machete, axe, baseball bat, combat knife and chainsaw.
He was hacked at, beaten and slashed before being doused with corrosive ammonia.
In 2023 Abbas Mushtaq was locked up for 16 years for conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, violent disorder and possession with intent to supply. Other gang members – Taylor Snape, 25, Jake Horrocks, 24, and Naseer Kazmi, 32 – were also jailed.
That year, in a BBC documentary, a detective outlined exactly what his team was up against in Rochdale. Violence had rapidly increased in the previous five years, he said, adding: 'You will get acid attacks, machete attacks, incidents in which people have been scalped on the street. And almost all extreme violence in the area is linked to gangs.'
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Most here are Pakistanis. Maybe some imported blacks. These once were white mill towns, heart of the Industrial Revolution.
Machete drug gangs? Yeah, the best I can do is get rid of your air conditioning.
All part and parcel of living in a vibrant, diverse community!
Because globalist counts.
A few real men would end this problem in short order.
L
You’re bad.
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