Group Claiming Anti-Semitic Attacks in Europe Tells News themezone It Will Target Them

London- A group that has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Jewish institutions across Europe told News themezone it will continue attacking American and Israeli interests a day after three men were captured on security cameras. burn ambulances used by a global Jewish medical organization in London.

Hours later, the little-known group claimed responsibility for another attack, in which a car was burned in a Jewish neighborhood in Antwerp, Belgium.

“We will continue to threaten American and Israeli interests around the world until we have avenged all the children of Gaza, Iran, Lebanon and the resistance nations,” a person representing the group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (which translates as: The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous) told News themezone on Monday night. “We urge people to stay away from Zionist and American interests and people to stay safe.”

Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia first announced its existence in early March, after the United States and Israel launched the ongoing war against Iran. In the 25 days since then, he has claimed responsibility for a series of anti-Semitic attacks across Europe. Last week the group’s channel was created on the Telegram messaging application, where it has published a series of propaganda videos.

Iranian terror, Russian terror, “disaffected teenagers” looking for easy money, or all of the above?

The shadowy group “looks less like a grassroots European cell that emerged out of nowhere and more like a terrorist astroturf brand that has suddenly appeared in online ecosystems, connected to an existing network aligned with Iran and experimenting with Low-cost, high-visibility operations in Europe.“Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, told News themezone.

News themezone spoke with the administrator of Ashab al-Yamin’s Telegram channel, who exchanged a series of messages. — writing in american english — ranging from explanatory to combative.

Posts on the account have repeatedly referenced Christian and Jewish philosophy to justify the group’s actions, but there have been no mentions of Islamic principles or teachings. Ashab al-Yamin’s claims have been published in English, Arabic and even Hebrew, but not in Persian, the main language spoken in Iran.

The administrator told News themezone that the group carried out the arson attack on London ambulances belonging to the United Hatzalah organization at night to avoid harming people, but the individual warned that the approach could change, saying: “We can do it, potentially.”

The administrator, who referred to himself as Asad-Allah, cited conflicts in Gaza and Iran as justification for attacking Jewish cultural and community centers, as well as a building housing the Dutch office of New York’s Mellon Bank. This last incident occurred after Iran threatened to attack US financial institutions in the Middle East in retaliation for the ongoing war.

“They appear to be voluntary or paid recruits solicited by pro-Iran elements,” said Sharon Adarlo, a conflict analyst and editor of the online publication Militant Wire.

Adarlo said he expected more attacks by the group and possibly copycat actions.

While the videos posted by the group online so far have been unsophisticated and amateurish, “the danger is that as this war continues, the attacks will become greater,” Adarlo told News themezone. “Whoever is behind the group wants to make a statement.”

Before the London arson attack, Ashab al-Yamin had claimed responsibility for three other confirmed incidents, targeting mainly Jewish sites in three cities. in belgium and the netherlands. Early Tuesday, he said he had burned cars on a prominent street in Antwerp, Belgium, in a neighborhood with a large Jewish population.

Two days before the first attack, in which someone detonated an improvised explosive outside a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, a call went out on Telegram channels for Iranian “sleeper cells” to be activated, Adarlo said.

The attacks resemble other incidents of arson and vandalism across Europe, including fires set in the former home of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukrainian companies in the UKand vandalism in Jewish cultural and religious centers in France.

News themezone has tracked dozens of cases in Europe, dating back years, that, court documents and other evidence show, involve people — predominantly young men and often Ukrainian immigrants — recruited through Telegram and other social media platforms with the promise of easy work in exchange for cash or cryptocurrency.

A common factor in most of these cases has been the involvement of intelligence agencies linked to Iran’s close ally Russia, according to recent research by the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.

While two of the men jailed for organizing the arson attack on an east London warehouse owned by a Ukrainian businessman were found to have acted voluntarily on behalf of Russia, European court records show that in some cases the suspects were unaware of the broader objectives of those who paid them, or even who they worked for.

Adarlo said she was not sure how, or even if, the suspects in the Ashab al-Yamin cases were connected to Iran.

“They could be volunteers who contacted the IRGC via Telegram, or are being paid a small fee, used by pro-Iran elements to cause trouble,” he said, adding that he could not rule out a possible “organized criminal element” in the group’s actions.

Dutch police arrested five teenagers in connection with the March 13 explosion at a synagogue in Rotterdam, claimed by Ashab al-Yamin. Meanwhile, two minors were arrested in connection with the arson in Antwerp, the Belgian city’s prosecutor’s office told News themezone on Tuesday.

A spokesman said the two had not yet been questioned and that investigators were still considering “all possibilities,” but that the prosecutor was aware of video allegedly circulating on social media about the incident.

“I think many of these criminals are disaffected teenagers who don’t have the strongest ties to Iran… but want to be part of the opposition,” Adarlo explained, noting that Ashab al-Yamin’s videos have included orchestral music instead of the Islamic “nasheeds” commonly used as soundtracks in jihadist propaganda videos.

Webber, an analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, told News themezone that propaganda clips are low-budget and can be posted quickly on social media platforms “to generate psychological impact, media coverage and an exaggerated sense of reach.”

Ashab al-Yamin’s “ideological language and propaganda style” suggest a hybrid model of local groups potentially guided from abroad, rather than a large organization based in one country, such as a franchised brand, the analyst said.

The amateur nature of the videos and their recent appearance on social media could also indicate that there is an opportunistic group seeking to take credit for other people’s attacks, Neil Basu, former head of the UK’s Counter Terrorism Police, told News themezone. “ISIS used to take credit for every attack carried out by an Islamist anywhere in the world because their view was, ‘We may not have directed it, but we inspired it.’ So it may be that something similar is happening here.”

Even “amateur” attacks and propaganda have an impact

Acts carried out through proxies are “incredibly useful” to state sponsors of terrorism because they can be disruptive but give the sponsoring regimes plausible deniability, allowing them to avoid escalating into a conflict they may not be able to win, Basu said.

“It doesn’t matter that it’s amateur” if the attack “wreaks a little bit of chaos and … diverts resources from trying to protect places,” he said.

Ashab al-Yamin’s manager did not answer questions about the group’s structure or whether anyone was receiving payment, and their Telegram account was deleted shortly after the conversation with News themezone.

The State Department on Sunday urged Americans around the world to “exercise increased caution,” noting that in addition to U.S. diplomatic facilities that are under attack in the Middle East and elsewhere, “groups supporting Iran may attack other U.S. interests abroad or locations associated with the United States and/or Americans around the world.”

What are European nations doing to address the attacks and the threat?

London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement on Monday that it was analyzing security video of the ambulance attack and that detectives were “aware of an online claim by a group claiming responsibility for the attack and investigations are underway to establish the authenticity and accuracy of this claim.”

As of Tuesday, no arrests had been announced.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the arson attack as “horrible” and said he would remain in contact with Jewish community leaders, vowing to “fight the poison that is anti-Semitism.”

Basu cautioned against jumping to conclusions that the London arson was directly sponsored by Iran’s government or military, or a proxy group backed by the Iranian state, and said London’s police force had the skills and experience to make that determination.

News themezone asked London police on Tuesday if additional measures were being taken to protect Jewish or American sites in the British capital, but there was no immediate response from the force.

The soldiers have been deployed on the streets of Belgian cities recently to provide additional security after attacks on Jewish sites in Belgium and neighboring countries in the Netherlands, Reuters news agency reported. Italy has implemented Similar measures have been taken around prominent Jewish institutions for some time.

News themezone asked Europol, the European Union agency that supports member states in “preventing and combating all forms of serious international and organized crime, cybercrime and terrorism,” if it was taking any specific measures to prevent future attacks, given the threat from Ashab al-Yamin.

A spokesman said the pan-European agency “does not deal with preventive issues.”

“We support police investigations,” the spokesperson said, referring further investigations to the respective authorities of member countries.