London — British police have arrested two teenagers in connection with a weekend arson attack on a synagogue in northwest London, as Jewish leaders expressed concern about a wave of incidents targeting their community.
Matt Jukes, deputy commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Service, said on Monday that officers had overnight arrested two youths, aged 19 and 17, in connection with the attack on Harrow’s Kenton United Synagogue. The department has made 15 arrests related to six attacks on Jewish targets and one Persian language media organization The Iranian government has been criticized over the past few weeks, he said in an interview with the BBC.
Jewkes said a “serious line of inquiry” is that Iran is hiring local criminals to carry out these attacks amid tensions in the Middle East, including the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.
“We’ve seen a pattern with other artists of hired swindlers, people taking cash that looks like quick and easy money,” Jukes said. “This is part of a modern hybrid war fought by proxy.”
In the most recent incident, a bottle containing a flammable liquid was thrown from the window of the Harrow Synagogue on Saturday night, causing smoke damage, police said.
Counter-terrorism police are investigating the chain of events, which began when it was destroyed in an arson attack on March 23. four ambulances It is owned by a Jewish charity which serves people of all religions in North London. Police on Friday closed down central London’s Kensington Gardens, which is visited by thousands of tourists and local residents every day, to investigate an alleged drone attack on the nearby Israeli embassy.
No one was injured in these incidents, which all occurred within a few miles (kilometres) of each other.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said Sunday that “a sustained campaign of violence and intimidation against Britain’s Jewish community is gaining momentum.”
“Thank God, no one has died, but we cannot and must not wait for this to change before we realize how dangerous this moment is for our entire society,” he said on
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans said on Sunday that police were aware that a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yameen al-Islamiyya had claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in Britain. He said the same group has claimed responsibility for incidents at places of worship, businesses and financial institutions across Europe in recent months, all of which appear to be linked to Jewish or Israeli interests.
The Israeli government has described Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya, the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right, as a recently founded group with suspected ties to “Iranian proxies.”
Evans said, “I want to make it clear to those who facilitated and acted on their behalf, regardless of the motivation of this group – we will not tolerate activity that seeks to intimidate or threaten our communities. You will not succeed in creating division and hatred.”
Britain has accused Iran of using criminal disguises to carry out attacks targeting European soil opposition media outlets And the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says it has foiled more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots by October.
