LONDON, Feb 13 (Reuters) – 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 nearby northwest city of Manchester.

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

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.”

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by William James)