The head of Belgium’s threat assessment coordination body, Gert Vercauteren, said in recent days that Iran was behind two attacks on Jewish targets in the country in March, and that the perpetrators acted on Tehran’s orders, The Brussels Times reported.
1+In an interview with Belgian media, Vercauteren said the attackers were acting in response to Iranian calls to strike Jewish targets around the world. According to him, these were not two separate incidents but part of a broader coordinated operation.
According to the report, on March 9 an explosive device was detonated near a synagogue in the city of Liège, and the incident was quickly transferred to a terrorism investigation by the federal prosecutor. That same week, a car was set on fire in Antwerp’s Jewish quarter. There were no casualties in either incident.
1+The Belgian official said the attacks marked the peak of activity attributed to Iran inside the country. Meanwhile, intelligence services also identified connections to several plots in the Netherlands, including an attempt to bomb a synagogue in the city of Hengelo that was thwarted before it could be carried out.