LONDON – British counterterrorism police are investigating an attempted arson attack in London, one of a string of recent incidents targeting Jewish and Iranian premises in the city.
Police said Saturday that they aren't currently linking the incident to recent attacks on Jewish charity ambulances and a Persian-language media organization.
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The Metropolitan Police force said that detectives weren't treating the incidents as acts of terror, but Counter Terrorism Policing London is leading the investigation “due to the similarities of each attack.”
Police said that on Friday night a man was spotted leaving a bag containing three bottles of fluid outside a building, which was previously used by the Jewish community. He attempted to light the contents, which failed to ignite fully, and then fled. No arrests have been made.
Friday’s incident in the Hendon area is close to Golders Green, where four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were torched on March 23. Four people have been charged over that attack.
Police are also investigating an attempted arson attack on a synagogue in northwest London on Wednesday. On the same day, what police called an “ignited container” was thrown into a Persian media organization’s premises in Wembley, another part of northwest London. Two men and a teenage boy have been charged with arson.
No one has been injured in any of the incidents.
One line of investigation is whether the incidents are linked to Iran. The U.K. has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says that more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year to October.