A London police officer is warning British Jews face the biggest threat of all as a group linked to Iran says it is attacking.
British Jews are facing the biggest crackdown in their history, as police investigate an Iran-linked group it claims is behind a spate of antisemitic attacks, a London police officer has warned.
“When you cover three things now – hate crime, terrorism and hostile state actions – you put all that together, that’s combined with that formation of ideas on the Internet, that’s dangerous and worrying,” Sir Mark Rowley, head of London’s Metropolitan Police, told The Times of London on Friday.
“Whether you’re over to the left, whether you’re an Islamist terrorist, whether you’re a right-wing terrorist, and hostile states as well, now with some kind of Iranian-related threats. There’s kind of a scary Venn diagram between them,” Rowley said.
These comments follow a horrific anti-Semitic knife attack on Wednesday, in which two Jewish men were stabbed in north London, allegedly by Essa Suleiman, 45, who was born in Somalia, The Times of Israel reported.
Suleiman has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a weapon in a public place, according to authorities.
The Islamic Shadowy group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) claims to have carried out the knife attack, reports The Times of Israel.
That group has also been credited with at least eight arson attacks on Jewish properties in London in recent weeks, NBC News reported.
HAYY has direct links to the Tehran regime, with British authorities investigating whether the group is directly linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps or another arm of Tehran’s crumbling government, the Times of London said.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised the government would take immediate action and suggested the attack may have had foreign support.
“We’ve increased funding for increased police patrols and proactive security and we’re moving quickly to deal with bad actors,” Starmer wrote on X, adding, “My message to the Jewish people is this: you belong here, and we’ll do everything we can to keep you safe.”
Starmer also suggested that people who use the leftist rallying-cry “globalize the intifada,” widely seen as an anti-Semitic call for violence against Jews, at marches against Israel should be prosecuted.
“[I]if you walk with people wearing pictures of paragliders without calling, you are honoring the killing of Jews. “If you stand next to people who say you’re calling for a global Intifada, you’re calling for terrorism against Jews and people who use that word should be prosecuted,” Starmer said on Saturday.
Starmer added that he would consider shutting down other pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel marches if they use the time to spread calls for an intifada.
