UK police arrest two men over arson attack on ambulances belonging to Jewish charity

Published on 25/03/2026 - 14:41 GMT+1

Police successful the United Kingdom arrested 2 men connected Wednesday successful transportation with an arson onslaught connected 4 ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity, an battle that authorities are investigating arsenic an antisemitic hatred crime.

The Metropolitan Police said the 2 men, aged 45 and 47, were arrested successful London connected suspicion of arson with intent to endanger beingness and that some men person been taken to a constabulary presumption successful the metropolis for questioning.

Officers are searching 2 properties successful northbound London, a fewer kilometres from the country of the onslaught successful Golders Green.

Commander Helen Flanagan, caput of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said the arrests marked "an important breakthrough successful the investigation."

But she noted that surveillance camera footage of the incidental suggests 3 radical were involved.

Police person not declared the incidental to beryllium a panic attack, but are investigating a assertion of work by a radical with imaginable links to Iran.

The blaze aboriginal connected Monday greeting successful Golders Green, a London neighbourhood with a ample Jewish community, consumed 4 ambulances belonging to the unpaid organisation Hatzola Northwest.

Oxygen cylinders successful the vehicles exploded, breaking windows successful an adjacent flat block.

Shaky consciousness of security

Also shattered was the community's shaky consciousness of security, already strained by the Israel-Hamas warfare successful Gaza and what galore accidental is simply a soaring antisemitism.

The Metropolitan Police unit has stepped up information for the Jewish community's schools, synagogues and centres up of Passover adjacent month, including what the unit says are "highly disposable firearms patrols."

The UK has accused Tehran of utilizing transgression proxies to behaviour attacks connected European ungraded targeting absorption media outlets and the Jewish community.

Britain’s MI5 home quality work says much than 20 "potentially lethal" Iran-backed plots were disrupted successful the twelvemonth up to past October.

Police are probing a assertion of work posted connected societal media by a radical calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, which translates arsenic the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right.

Israel’s authorities has described it arsenic a precocious founded radical with suspected links to pro-Tehran networks that has besides claimed work for synagogue attacks successful Belgium and the Netherlands.

Metropolitan Police main Mark Rowley said detectives are investigating the assertion but that it was excessively aboriginal to property the onslaught to the Iranian regime.