The man who carried out an attack at a synagogue in Manchester, UK on Thursday which left two Jewish people dead and three others injured has been named by local police as Jihad Al-Shamie, the BBC reports.

Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old British man of Syrian descent, drove a car at people outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue before attacking bystanders with a knife. He was shot dead by police at the scene.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said three further people had been arrested as part of the investigation and declared it a "terrorist incident."

The three injured men include one who was stabbed, a second who was struck by the vehicle and a third who later went to hospital with an injury "that may have been sustained as officers stopped the attacker," GMP says.

GMP said that two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s had been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.

A spokesman for the force added that a suspicious device worn by the attacker during the incident had been assessed and found not to be a viable explosive.

He added that no referrals related to Al-Shamie had been made to prevent the UK government's anti-radicalization scheme.

It is understood that Al-Shamie entered the UK as a young child, and was granted British citizenship in 2006 as a minor.

Robin Simcox, commissioner for countering extremism, told the BBC that there was an "early indicator" that the attack was "Islamist" because of the dummy suicide vest the suspect was wearing.

GMP chief constable Sir Stephen Watson said there had been many worshippers inside the synagogue at the time of the incident.