Belgium has confirmed that Iran was behind the attacks in the country six months ago: Gert Vercauteren, head of Belgium's Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (CUTA), confirmed Thursday that the March attacks against a synagogue in Liège and a vehicle in Antwerp's Jewish quarter were carried out on Tehran's orders. In doing so, Belgian authorities officially confirmed for the first time a direct link between Iran and the wave of attacks against Jewish targets in Europe.
In an interview with broadcaster RTBF, Vercauteren said the perpetrators acted "definitely" on Iran's orders, with the aim of targeting Jewish and Israeli sites around the world. According to him, these were not isolated acts of vandalism but a coordinated campaign. He noted that the March incidents represented the peak of Iranian activity inside Belgium and said that since the arrest in Turkey of one of the main suspects in coordinating the attacks on the continent, no further attacks by the network have been recorded.
The video released by the jihadist organization after the attack in Antwerp
(Credit: Shmira Antwerpen)
On March 9, at around 4 a.m., an explosive device detonated on Léon Frédéric Street in Liège, near the city's synagogue. A week and a half later, a vehicle was set on fire in the center of Antwerp's Jewish quarter and burned completely. No civilians were injured in either incident.
According to Vercauteren, the investigation crosses borders: The incidents in Belgium occurred almost simultaneously with terrorist plots in the Netherlands, including an attempted attack on a synagogue in the Dutch town of Heemstede. Belgium's national threat level stands at 3 out of 4 ("serious") and has remained at that level continuously since the shooting in Brussels in October 2023, in which two Swedish soccer fans were killed.
The synagogue in Liège near which the explosive device detonated
(Photo: Eric Lalmand / Belga / AFP)
The attacks in Liège and Antwerp took place against the backdrop of a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents in Europe since the outbreak of the war with Iran in late February. An Iran-affiliated jihadist group called the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, also known as IMCR or Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, previously claimed responsibility for similar attacks, including an arson attack on a synagogue in Rotterdam and an attack against a Jewish school in Amsterdam.
Following the attack in Liège, Belgium announced that it was tightening security measures, including deploying soldiers alongside police around some 20 synagogues and four Jewish schools in Antwerp, the center of Belgium's Jewish community, which numbers about 30,000 people.