Terrorism ‘made in Tehran’ looms over Europe

According to British counter-terrorism police, Tehran is believed to be behind the plot to carry out a bomb attack on an RAF base. Five men, all British nationals, were arrested and subsequently released on bail on charges of plotting a terrorist attack against the Fairford base in Gloucestershire, which has been used by the US armed forces since D-Day and where twelve B-1 bombers – used against Iran – are currently stationed. The five men arrested were less than half a kilometre from the base and intended to use vans as car bombs. The apparent scale of the plot would make it one of the most serious terrorist conspiracies in recent times. In July, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards had warned Britain that allowing American bombers to carry out attacks from Fairford would make the base a target for Iran. 

The pro-Iranian group Harakat Ashab al Yamin al Islamiya (Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous) had already claimed responsibility for seventeen attacks against Jewish, Israeli or Iranian dissident-linked targets in the United Kingdom since 9 March. Of these, seven attacks took place in London; five involved arson. The attack in Golders Green on Jewish ambulances was the first to be classified as a terrorist act. On Sunday, Belgium also accused Iran of being behind the attacks in the country: the attacks on a synagogue in Liège and a vehicle in the Jewish quarter of Antwerp are said to have been carried out on Tehran’s orders. Belgian authorities have officially confirmed, for the first time, a link between Iran and the wave of attacks on Jewish targets in Europe. The Netherlands is also investigating Iran’s involvement in the attack on a synagogue in Rotterdam. The Minister for Justice, David van Weel, stated that the suspects arrested in connection with the attack had been actively recruited by Tehran. London has long been on alert for Iranian involvement behind the attacks on Jewish sites in the city. Iran is believed to be behind the attempted assassination of Volker Beck, a long-standing leader of the German Greens, a member of the Bundestag from 1994 to 2017 and now president of the German-Israeli Friendship Society.

In May, federal prosecutors in New York indicted a commander of Kataib Hezbollah – an Iraqi militia acting on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – accusing him of orchestrating attacks in Europe. The indictment alleges that the militia commander, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al Saadi, planned twenty attacks against US and Israeli interests in Europe and Canada from February onwards. Saadi was arrested in Turkey and handed over to the US authorities, accused of also planning attacks against Jewish targets in the United States, including a synagogue in New York. In a covertly recorded conversation, Saadi claimed responsibility for two attacks in Canada that targeted the U.S. consulate in Toronto and a synagogue.

A tip-off from Israeli intelligence had already assisted Australia in its investigations into Iran’s role in two anti-Semitic attacks carried out after 7 October. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) had established that the Revolutionary Guards were behind the attacks on a kosher restaurant in Sydney and a synagogue in Melbourne. Israeli intelligence provided ASIO with a lead linked to one of the arson attacks, which subsequently proved decisive in Canberra’s order for the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, to leave the country – the first expulsion of a foreign ambassador since the Second World War.

When British Prime Minister Andy Burnham answered questions in Parliament regarding his and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s decision to impose sanctions on the Israeli government, the Prime Minister was surprisingly candid about the trade-offs involved. Burnham also admitted: “We have given the most careful consideration to… all the risks. The Foreign Secretary and I have received close advice from the security services and, of course, from officials at the Foreign Office and our embassies.” The reason why the British secret service (SIS or MI6) warned Miliband relates to intelligence: London cannot do without Israel. Blaise Metreweli, head of MI6, said: “The Gulf states come to us because they know we have a good relationship with Israel. They cannot achieve it directly, but they want it; they need it. They look at us and say: ‘What the hell are you doing, falling out with them?’”.

The former head of Mossad, Yossi Cohen, said in an interview with The Times: “I can quote the former head of MI5, who told me: ‘Yossi, you deserve an Oscar; you’ve foiled a huge number of terrorist attacks in Britain. Thank you very much for that’”.