Two Iranian men in Britain have been charged with allegedly spying on the Jewish community in London on behalf of Iran.
The arrests come as French police say they thwarted a plot against Jewish targets by supporters of the Islamic State, and as Belgium deploys its army to patrol Jewish sites following a blast at a synagogue there.
British police arrested Nematollah Shahsavani, 40, and Alireza Farasati, 22, two other men earlier this month on suspicion of conducting surveillance on Jewish community sites, with the likely goal of facilitating attacks against them.
While the two other men were released without charge, London’s Metropolitan Police announced on Wednesday that Shahsavani and Farasati had been charged under the National Security Act with assisting a foreign intelligence service between July 9 and Aug. 15 last year. “The country to which the investigation relates is Iran,” the agency said.
The arrests coincide with rising fears about Iran’s operatives overseas amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, as its longstanding network has repeatedly targeted Jewish and Israeli sites.
“We fully recognise that the public – and in particular the Jewish community – will be concerned but I hope this investigation reassures them that we will not hesitate to take action if we identify there may be a threat to their safety, and will be relentless in our pursuit of those who may be responsible,” Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator of U.K. counterterrorism policing, said in a statement.
The Crown Prosecution Service, which delivered the charges, wrote in a statement that the men were accused of “gathering information and undertaking reconnaissance of targets” that was “likely to assist a foreign intelligence service in carrying out UK-related activities.”
The Community Security Trust, Britain’s main antisemitism watchdog, thanked police and prosecutors for delivering the charges in a post on X.
“The charging of two individuals under the National Security Act indicates the seriousness of the threat faced by the Jewish community and the reason why security across the community remains so high,” the post read.
Security officials say the Iran war has contributed to an unusually high threat environment for Jews around the world, with law enforcement stepping up their surveillance of Jewish sites with the aim of protecting them from threats.
In France, two brothers aged 20 and 22 were arrested after they flew a drone over a jail in the northern town of Longuenesse. Police then found weapons and an Islamic State flag in their car, and on investigation learned that the brothers had devised “a terror plot whose deadly and antisemitic nature appears to be established,” according to prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Belgium has announced that it is deploying its army to protect Jews and Jewish institutions there, sending soldiers to patrol what local media has reported to be about 20 sites across the country.
“Against a backdrop of rising anti-Semitism, the attack on the synagogue in Liège has once again demonstrated that the threat to the Jewish community in Belgium is very real,” Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said in a press release. “Ensuring the safety of our fellow citizens is the duty of the state in all its forms, regardless of any political considerations. The deployment of military personnel to reinforce security around Jewish sites will provide direct support to the police services.”
A new group that calls itself the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, which is believed to be affiliated with Iran, claimed credit for the Belgium attack as well as two bombings of Jewish sites in the Netherlands.
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