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Earlier this month, an unusual spectacle unfolded in the heart of Manchester, leaving onlookers both intrigued and puzzled. Two men, striking a formidable presence on horseback, made their way through the city center. Their sudden appearance drew curious glances and whispers among passers-by.
Dressed in peaked caps and attire that resembled a uniform, the riders seemed to emerge from nowhere, evoking images of a ‘strange militia,’ as one observer noted. Their demeanor was equally enigmatic; they often disregarded police instructions, choosing instead to navigate the city streets with an air of authority, as if they were on a self-appointed patrol.
Their arrival coincided with a poignant and potentially volatile event. On the night of March 4, outside the Manchester Islamic Centre on Sidney Street, a candlelit vigil was being held. Mourners had gathered to pay homage to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following his death in the US-Israeli attacks on Tehran.
The vigil carried the risk of inciting a reaction from anti-regime protesters, and tensions began to rise as night fell. By 9 PM, the situation escalated, with crowds forming opposing sides across a tense divide, kept apart by lines of police officers. Amidst this charged atmosphere, the arrival of the mounted duo added an unexpected twist to the scene, further heightening the drama of an already febrile evening.
Such provocation risked a counter action from anti-regime protesters, and so it proved. By 9pm trouble was brewing. Soon, hundreds faced each other across a no man’s land secured by lines of police. And it was against this backdrop, as the atmosphere grew febrile, that the two-man cavalry arrived.
That police officers at the scene, dozens of them, were all on foot only served to heighten the spectacle’s incongruity.
Leaving no doubt as to their allegiance, the bearded horsemen planted themselves firmly in the pro-Ayatollah camp, whose supporters were outnumbered.
‘They were guarding their own and trying to intimidate people,’ claimed a witness. ‘Some of the anti-regime people kept asking who they were but they wouldn’t tell them. They just sat on their horses, staring coldly ahead, not saying anything.’
Two men on horseback were seen at a vigil for the former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier this month
What followed became the subject of debate that spread – expedited by social media, of course – across the world. Widely shared footage of the horses on the night only raised rather than answered questions, however.
Among them: Who were the two horsemen? Where were they from? Had they really galloped through the bustling city centre chasing rival protesters under the noses of Greater Manchester Police? And were they, as some suggested, members of an unofficial ‘sharia police’ patrol, checking that passers-by were behaving in an Islamic fashion?
The Daily Mail can reveal that one of the riders is a 35-year-old engineering lecturer who told us he did not support the Ayatollah but was simply acting as a peacemaker on the night. He owns both horses, Khyber and Lionheart, and stables them 20 miles outside the city centre.
Describing himself as a British-born Pakistani Muslim, he said he was aware the vigil was taking place because some of his friends were attending.
‘For me it [the vigil] was a sad event as well and I stopped by to pay my respects,’ he said.
‘I had no idea a protest was going on. Because it was getting violent, we thought that if we kept the horses near the entrance of the vigil it would act a deterrent to any troublemakers.’
Rather less convincingly he claimed he only brought the animals to the city on the night because he wanted ‘to get them trained for traffic so they wouldn’t get spooked easily’.
He said the sharia suggestions were wrong and denied chasing down anti-regime protesters. ‘The video shows us going towards them, but I wasn’t chasing them. I only went to them to try to say, “This is not the place for this”.’
Officers at the vigil in Manchester did not make the men dismount the horses
Despite entreaties to police to arrest the riders, or at least get them to dismount and send them on their way, they instead let them go about their business. This enraged some of the anti-regime protesters and led to testy exchanges. One man is overheard on footage telling a police officer: ‘They should be being nicked, they’ve just been chasing people on horses. Why aren’t they being nicked?’
The officer replies that he could hardly be expected to ‘pull him off a horse’. To this the man shoots back: ‘If they had a Union Jack on they’d be off the horse.’ Still, some credit must go to the police. Beyond a few scuffles, they managed to keep both sides apart and the night ended peacefully with no arrests.
So how did this bizarre scene come about?
The vigil was promoted by a group calling itself the Friends of the Manchester Islamic Centre but organised by ‘the Muslim Community’, according to posters. Mourners lit candles, waved the modern Iranian flag, the Palestinian flag, and held aloft photos of the Ayatollah.
Like other commemorations across the country eulogising a cleric who kept Iran in an iron grip during a brutal 37-year reign, the gathering brought consternation. It didn’t even get the backing of the Manchester Islamic Centre, whose leaders seemed irritated at being directly linked to it and tried to get it cancelled or relocated.
‘We were told by police that it was their right to hold this event,’ said one of the leaders.
Such rights, of course, were denied to the 30,000 and more protesters killed in Iran in January when the Ayatollah used the military to crush dissent. Like those who attended the Manchester vigil and similar events across Britain, many of the victims in Iran were students.
Amid the growing tensions outside the Islamic centre, the arrival of the horsemen astonished not just the police and anti-regime protesters, but some of the mourners. One, Ali Hassan, 26, said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when these guys turned up.
‘They were just trying to protect those on our [the pro-Ayatollah] side. We faced a lot of hostility. The police tried to keep everyone apart and the two guys tried to get in on our side.’
As to how the animals arrived in the centre of Manchester, the horseman traced by the Mail said he drove them into the city in a trailer. ‘We rode around Wilmslow Road and stopped there [at the vigil] as we were on our way to St Peter’s Square because we wanted to get some photographs,’ he said.
A protester set fire to a placard during the vigil, which police said they could not stop from going ahead
A photographer covering the vigil said the men repeatedly rode up and down the same section of Oxford Road, which connects the city to its southern suburbs.
‘The police were interacting with them,’ he said. ‘But the fact that they had to look up at them meant they kind of lost their natural authority.’
Video footage shows some of the anti-regime protesters peel away from the main group, walk briefly down Oxford Road, then turn into Grosvenor Street. Either by accident or design, the horse riders took the same route and the video picks them up trotting along a cycle lane past the Sugden Sports Centre and towards a Mac and PC Computer shop roughly 200 metres down the road.
It was here that the horsemen pulled up short as they were met by jeers and shouting. Of this moment the horse owner said: ‘As soon as I realised they were afraid of the horses, I did a U-turn.’
The photographer added: ‘I wouldn’t say anyone was chased but it was an aggressive manoeuvre. When you see horses moving at speed you know something is happening, but it was more an intimidation thing.
‘At no point did I think they were going to run them over. [The law states that it can be an offence if the approach is threatening or to cause alarm.] I just think the police didn’t know what do because it was horses.’
There is also an extraordinary postscript to this strange affair. A few days after the vigil, police contacted the horse owner, not to investigate what happened – but because ‘they were concerned’ about his welfare.
Today, the horseman is keen to play down the incident: ‘It looked more like a protest than a vigil. So I stopped by and saw some people and friends that I knew.
‘I’ve got Iranian friends on both sides of the fence, but my friends were with the pro-regime side.
‘As for me, I’m not pro-regime and I’m not pro-war. You could call me neutral.’
Maybe. But not everyone would see it quite like that.
Additional reporting: Ian Leonard