The Metropolitan Police are investigating a suspected Iran-linked group over an arson attack that destroyed four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green, London.
Attackers set the vehicles ablaze early Monday, triggering explosions from onboard gas canisters.
Police are treating the case as an anti-Semitic hate crime, not terrorism, and say three suspects were involved.
Speaking at an event, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said officers are “pursuing all lines of enquiry,” including an online claim by an Islamist group with alleged Iranian links, but stressed it is “too early” to attribute the attack to Tehran.
Sir Mark warned of a “rapid growth” in Iranian state threats, citing disrupted plots, surveillance and attacks targeting Jewish communities and Iranian dissidents.
Head of Counter Terrorism Policing, Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, said recent Iran-backed plots in the UK have involved assassination, kidnap and espionage.
Police have deployed 264 additional officers, firearms patrols, drones and facial recognition technology to protect Jewish communities.
Speaking on Tuesday, a member of the British Intelligence and Security Committee, Lord Beamish, said there was a pattern of Iran targeting anti-government dissidents and the Jewish community “through proxies”.
Iran-aligned group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya claimed responsibility online without evidence and has linked itself to recent attacks on Jewish sites in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Hatzola, (Hebrew word for save or rescue), is a large non-profit, Jewish-led organisation that provides a free emergency medical response and transportation to hospitals by volunteer medics which has been operating since 1979.
A Hatzola representative, Mr Laurence Blitz, described the attack as shocking, noting that the organisation exists solely “to save lives.”
Mr Blitz added that more than £1 million has been raised to rebuild the fleet.
BBC/Edited by Maxwell Oyekunle
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