UK police arrest men over attack on Jewish ambulances
British police have arrested two men in connection with an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity, which authorities are investigating as an anti-Semitic hate crime.
The men, aged 45 and 47, were arrested in London on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life and taken to a police station for questioning, the Metropolitan Police said.
Commander Helen Flanagan, head of London’s Counter Terrorism Police, said the arrests were a “significant breakthrough in the investigation”.
However, he noted that security camera video of the incident showed three people were involved.
Police have not declared the incident a terrorist attack but are investigating claims of responsibility by a group with potential links to Iran.
A fire broke out in Golders Green, a London neighborhood with a large Jewish population, in the early hours of Monday morning, destroying four ambulances belonging to the volunteer organization Hatzola Northwest.
As a result of the explosion of oxygen tanks in the vehicles, the windows of the adjacent apartment building were broken.
It has also shattered the community’s tenuous sense of security, already strained by wars in the Middle East and what many say is a growing hatred of Jews.
Britain has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to carry out attacks on European soil targeting opposition media outlets and the Jewish community.
Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service said more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots had been foiled by October.
Police are investigating the claim of responsibility shared on social media by a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yemin al-Islamiye, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Right Companions.
The Israeli government said the organization was a recently established group that was suspected of having links to pro-Iranian networks and also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley said detectives were investigating the claim but it was too early to attribute the attack to the Iranian state.
