Belgian Security Chief Says Iran Directed Attacks on Jewish Targets

Iran directed two attacks against Jewish targets in Belgium earlier this year as part of a broader campaign in Europe, according to the head of Belgium’s national threat-analysis agency.

Gert Vercauteren, director of Belgium’s Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis, known as CUTA, told Belgian broadcaster RTBF that the perpetrators of attacks in Liège and Antwerp acted on instructions from Tehran.

The incidents included an explosion outside a synagogue in Liège on March 9 and an arson attack in Antwerp’s Jewish quarter later that month.

The Liège explosion occurred shortly before 4 a.m. outside the synagogue on Rue Léon Frédéricq. The blast damaged the synagogue and nearby buildings but caused no injuries. Belgian federal prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation following the attack.

At the time, authorities had not publicly established who was responsible or definitively determined the motive. Belgium’s prime minister warned days later that European countries were tracking possible Iran-directed terror networks.

Later in March, attackers set fire to a vehicle in Antwerp’s Jewish quarter. Police detained two minors and provisionally classified the incident as deliberate arson connected to suspected terrorist activity.

Vercauteren now says the two Belgian incidents were part of a coordinated campaign rather than unrelated attacks.

The campaign also extended beyond Belgium, according to Belgian security officials. Intelligence agencies disrupted several operations in the Netherlands, including an alleged plan to bomb a synagogue in the Dutch town of Heemstede.

Authorities later arrested one of the suspected organizers of the network in Turkey. Belgian officials have not recorded another attack linked to the campaign since the arrest, according to The Brussels Times.

The attribution follows months of heightened concern in Belgium over possible Iranian operations against Jewish and Israeli targets.

In March, CUTA said Iran had previously demonstrated the ability to conduct operations in Europe either directly or through proxy networks against Israeli and Jewish targets, US interests and Iranian opposition figures. The agency said it was paying particular attention to those threats amid the conflict in the Middle East.

Belgium subsequently deployed soldiers to protect synagogues and Jewish schools following the Liège bombing and other attacks against Jewish sites in Europe.

Belgium currently maintains its national terrorism and extremism threat level at three on a four-level scale, meaning authorities consider the threat “serious.”

Vercauteren’s comments represent a firmer public attribution of the attacks to Iran than Belgian authorities gave immediately after the incidents, when investigations into the perpetrators and their motives were still underway.