Police investigate whether London arson attacks were planned for weeks

Detectives are investigating whether the series of arson attacks in London were planned for weeks with suspects carrying out reconnaissance on the Jewish targets to be firebombed.

The series of attacks against synagogues and other Jewish targets, as well as one premises linked to Iranian dissidents, are believed to be carried out by criminals paid on behalf of Iran, police said.

Last week the attacks in London intensified with investigators believing it most likely the criminals were recruited online and also given directions online.

A group believed to be linked to Iran has posted videos featuring the attacks so far in London, including the latest on Saturday evening against a synagogue in Harrow, north-west London.

This attacks appears to have been livestreamed to a “handler” with the footage then edited to appear in a propaganda video issued on Telegram by the group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right).

The suspected involvement of a foreign state has led to counter-terrorism policing taking charge of the investigation, hunting for attackers as well as those directing them.

Two teenagers, 17 and 19, were arrested in connection with the Harrow attack on suspicion of arson, with one suspect still being hunted.

Police said a group of three men were involved in the attack on the synagogue in Shaftesbury Avenue, Kenton, at about 11.35pm on Saturday.

One smashed a window before hurling a petrol bomb through it.

Police said minor damage was caused and nobody was injured, but the culminative effect of the series of attacks in a short space of time is further worrying British Jewish communities who have suffered a large rise in antisemitism since October 2023, when Israel was invaded, attacked and 1,200 of its citizens killed, with the country responding by attacking Gaza with tens of thousands killed.

So far 15 people have been arrested over the six attacks in London since 23 March, when the first firebombing targeted four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in north London, police said.

Last week saw attacks on the synagogue in Harrow (a building once used by a Jewish educational charity), an attempt to use drones against the Israeli embassy, an arson attack against an Iranian dissident media company, as well as a synagogue in Finchley.

The strongly suspected role of Iran is under active investigation and Matt Jukes, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, told LBC: “We’re going to look incredibly closely at whether those claims stand up.

“They’re intended to intimidate so we have to distinguish what’s happening online and being broadcast and claimed, from those things we can prove.