London police have arrested two suspects accused of conducting a weekend arson attack on a synagogue and are following a “very serious line of inquiry” regarding the extent of foreign proxies utilizing “thugs for hire.”
Two male suspects, 17 and 19, were taken into custody on Monday in relation to the arson attempt against Kenton United Synagogue on Sunday. Police previously reported that the perpetrator appears to have thrown a “bottle with some sort of accelerant” through a window of the institution.
Harakat Ashab al Yamin al Islamia, an ostensibly Iranian-aligned terrorist collective that claims to have operatives scattered throughout the continent, has taken credit for the attack. HAYI said the synagogue was chosen as a target because it is “one of the centers of Zionist influence in the British capital.”
Matt Jukes, deputy commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, told BBC Radio 4 on Monday that authorities have recently made “15 arrests in relation to a series of six incidents” targeting Jewish and Persian targets and warned of a “thugs for hire” model developing through online channels.
“We’ve seen a pattern,” Jukes said. “People taking cash as it looks like quick and easy money.”
In the deputy commissioner’s characterization, these hired terrorists may or may not even believe in the political agenda of the anonymous coordinators paying them for their crimes.
He called the arrangement “part of the modern hybrid war fought by proxies” and compared the situation to a previous investigation he oversaw that jailed Wagner Group operator Dylan Earl — “in that case, Russian connected.”
The same day, Jukes offered a parallel interview on radio station LBC, where he added that these “foreign state[s]” seem to be paying as little as $677 for these otherwise unaffiliated individuals to “sow discord, discontent, and to create anxiety.”
The group, whose name roughly translates to “The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right,” first emerged around March 9 when a suspect placed an improvised explosive outside a synagogue in the Belgian city of Liege.
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HAYI primarily communicates through a Telegram channel and has branded itself with Iranian-inspired imagery, featuring motifs such as a raised fist grasping a rifle. It publishes material in multiple languages, including English and Arabic, and posts propaganda videos splicing footage of its crimes with footage of world events.
The Sunday arson attack caused minor smoke damage to the structure, but no injuries were reported. It falls in line with a series of botched or minor terrorist attacks that have popped up across Western Europe in recent months.
