It is restless in the North London district of Golders Green, where many Jewish people live. After a series of incidents and attacks in the area, a 45-year-old man stabbed two people on Wednesday. He walked towards one man, 34, on the sidewalk, and suddenly attacked a 76-year-old at a bus stop. Video footage shows him running after a third man, who jumps into the street and escapes.
Until now, the violence has been directed against objects. In March, four ambulances from the Jewish charity Hatzola were set on fire in Golders Green, there was arson and attempted arson at London synagogues, and a fire was set at a Jewish-owned shop.
The day before the stabbing, a memorial wall in the neighborhood was set on fire where victims of October 7 were commemorated, but where space had recently also been made for victims of the uprising against the Iranian regime. There is also an Iranian community nearby.
The stabbing is also considered unlikely to be the work of HAYI – although the group has claimed responsibility
Most of those attacks have been claimed by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI). The group, probably affiliated with Iran, has claimed about twenty attacks in recent weeks. In March, shortly after the start of the Israeli-American attacks on Iran, it started in the Netherlands and Belgium.
It is so far considered unlikely that the stabbing is also the work of HAYI, although the group has claimed responsibility. The British authorities see no reason to believe it yet, but the investigation is still ongoing. The 45-year-old suspected of attempted murder has a history of mental health problems and violence. He is also, as it turned out on Thursday, known to the terrorism prevention program since a report in 2020. The victims were treated in hospital.
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Threat levels
European countries must take destabilizing activities into account because of the war in Iran, says Jan op gen Oorth, spokesperson for Europol. He points out Euractiv on possible actions of independently operating homegrown radicalized people, or clubs controlled from Iran. Sweden’s security service already saw an increase in March in the threat posed by Iran against American and Israeli targets in Sweden, with the use of criminal networks. The services of the Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, and Norway are working together.
Following the stabbing on Wednesday, the terrorism threat level was raised in the UK, from ‘substantial‘ Unpleasant ‘severe‘. This means that an attack is considered likely within the next six months. That’s not just because of Iran, but because of one increase threat from Islamist and right-wing extremist quarters.
The Dutch AIVD also sees it: security has not been under as much pressure in the past eighty years as it is now. The security service is particularly concerned about the increasing willingness of young people to use violence to undermine democracy.
A police officer at the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam, after previous attacks at a Rotterdam synagogue and an Amsterdam Jewish school.
Photo Mizzle Media / ANP
HAYI
So far, HAYI’s series of incidents and attacks have not focused on physical violence against people, but on objects, especially Jewish targets. In March it started in Belgium and the Netherlands, synagogues in Rotterdam and Liège, a Jewish school in Amsterdam. An explosive went off against the fence of the Israel Center in Nijkerk on the night of April 3 to 4.
There is a good chance that HAYI will get away with the act of a (confused) man. This stabbing does not correspond to the modus operandi, sees Julian Lanchès of the International Center for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), and so he considers it likely that HAYI is actually behind it.
HAYI has previously claimed actions that did not take place, and Lanchès refers to ISIS, which also wrongly claimed attacks. Moreover, these types of terrorist attacks that inflict violence on random people – at the risk of their own lives – are almost never carried out for money, says Lanchès. “It seems like they don’t really care whether they carried this out, their name is in the news.”
In an attack in Munich they wrote: this was in the middle of the night, but it could also have taken place during the day
The claim in London only came after the incident was in the news, more than an hour after it happened, with CCTV footage already circulating online. HAYI made previous claims with original bodycam-like images, often shortly after the act, usually in the middle of the night.
Yet the claim does mean something, according to Lanchès: the rhetoric is becoming more violent. The first videos in March were very business-like, with information about the location of the attack. Then, during the attacks on the Jewish school and the WTC in Amsterdam, they gave an explanation: it was a fight against Zionism. The last three or four attacks, says Lanchès, have Islamist components, threatening the use of radioactive materials. “During an attack in Munich they wrote: this was in the middle of the night, but it could also have taken place during the day.”
This tone and series of attacks, Lanchès knows from previous investigations, can inspire terrorism and give radicalized people the final push.
Belgian soldiers stand guard at a synagogue in Antwerp.
Photo John Thys / AFP
Iran
The somewhat elusive series of actions is associated with the Iranian regime. Although there isn’t one smoking gunthere also seems no doubt. The French anti-terrorism services write that the movement “seems to be formed to support the Iranian government against the US, Israel and their allies since the US-Israeli offensive in Iran.”
HAYI only appeared online after the start of that offensive. The ICCT researchers suspect that it is not a new group, but a front for existing operations. A cheap and relatively easy to deny way to destabilize.
It is not new that Iran carries out political violence in Europe, says Kacper Rekawek, researcher at the ICCT. That’s been happening for years. Iran has a playbook, a long arm that has been keeping political opponents abroad under its thumb for decades.
American terrorism researcher Matthew Levitt, Rekawek tells me, brought 98 incidents mapped from the Iranian revolution in 1979 to 2021, using public court records, reports and press releases. This involved assassination (attempts) of individuals, attacks targeting dissident groups or foreign embassies, people being kidnapped and taken to Iran against their will, and surveillance used to gather information for such operations.
The new thing is: this is often not about dissidents or direct opponents of the regime, this is asymmetrical warfare. Israel attacks Iran, Iran attacks the Jewish community. The victims seem random apart from their identities.
Snapchat
Le Monde reconstructed a foiled attack claimed by HAYI at the Bank of America in Paris. The suspects, three teenagers and a 21-year-old, did not know who exactly gave them the assignment. They had contact with a figure who was ‘LeGrand‘ mentioned on Snapchat. One of the suspects, a seventeen-year-old boy, had accepted the assignment in a Snapchat channel where he sometimes responded to drug courier assignments.
This method, recruiting young people online, is not specifically Iranian, but a broader phenomenon, says Bart Schuurman, professor of Political Violence and Terrorism at Leiden University. In the Netherlands too, young people are easily recruited via Snapchat.
Crime as a service has operational advantages, he says: it is often cheaper than someone you really have a relationship with, these are people who know little about you and therefore can share little information if they are arrested. And in some cases you can hardly find out. But in the case of Russian operations, which Schuurman investigated, if you are asked to set fire to specifically Ukrainian products in a department store, you can have a strong suspicion.
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