British investigators are being cautious, but experts and security officials say the arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green bears the hallmarks of Iranian intelligence. The attack, which occurred in the early hours of Monday, is part of a broader pattern of similar incidents targeting Jewish sites across western Europe with low-tech incendiary devices.
Mark Rowley, head of the Metropolitan Police, described a “very relevant and rolling threat” from Iran to the UK, specifically to Jewish targets, but warned it was too early to attribute the attack directly to Tehran. However, other experts point to Iran, noting that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s al-Quds force warned after the US-Israel offensive against Iran that “the enemy should know that their happy days are over”.
Since the start of the latest conflict, attacks have occurred in Azerbaijan, Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE, all linked to Iran by local authorities. In Europe, similar attacks include a bomb at a synagogue in Liège, Belgium, on 9 March, another in Rotterdam, and arson at a Jewish school and commercial centre in Amsterdam. Two teenagers were arrested after a vehicle was torched outside a Jewish-owned business in Antwerp.
A video posted on Telegram by a group calling itself Harakat al-Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) claimed responsibility, but security officials say the group likely does not exist and is a front invented by Iranian intelligence. The video was first broadcast on channels affiliated with Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a pro-Iranian Shia militia organised by the Revolutionary Guards.
Magnus Ranstorp, an expert on Iranian involvement with extremist groups, said Tehran has three aims for the UK: to intimidate the Jewish community, to test British security responses, and to signal its ability to strike anywhere. Rowley noted that the rapid growth of Iranian state threats includes 20 disrupted plots and recent attacks on the Iranian diaspora, calling it a “rapidly shifting threat landscape”.
