Kata’ib Hizballah senior official Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi was arrested and charged on Friday for planning attacks in the US, Canada, and Europe, with the US Department of Justice alleging that the Iranian proxy commander was responsible for the wave of attacks against Jewish, Israeli, and Iranian dissident sites in London over the last two months under the banner of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI)
The revelation that HAYI was not a new terrorist organization, and merely a component of Kata’ib Hizballah, places the question of a response before UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the governments of other European governments targeted in alleged Islamic Regime attacks on their soil and citizens.
"Since the onset of the Iranian Military Conflict on or about February 28, 2026, Kata’ib Hizballah, through a purportedly new terrorist group using the pseudonym Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, has carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Europe against US and Israeli interests," read the complaint. "Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, in fact, a front of Kata’ib Hizballah, designed to carry out and further the terrorist goals of Kata’ib Hizballah, Hizballah, and the IRGC."
Al-Saad allegedly orchestrated and posted the HAYI propaganda videos of 18 attacks in Europe, most of which occurred in London over the last two months. On March 9, explosives were hurled at a Belgian synagogue, and four days later, there was an arson attack against a Rotterdam synagogue. In Amsterdam, explosives were used against a Jewish school on March 14, and in the same city against the Bank of New York Mellon. Belgium was hit again on March 23, with the arson of a vehicle in an Antwerp Jewish neighborhood, and the first of the London attacks was conducted the same day, with the arson against four Hatzala ambulances in Golders Green. On March 28, an improvised explosive device (IED) was placed at the Bank of America in Paris, and on April 3 explosives were used against a pro Israel organization in Nijerk. A Munich Israeli restaurant was attacked with a pyrotechnic device on April 10, and on April 12, a Skopje synagogue was attacked with a firebomb.
London saw two attacks on April 15, with an arson attempt against the Iran International offices and against the Finchley Reform Synagogue. On April 17, HAYI claimed that it had placed hazardous materials onto a drone and dropped them on the Israeli embassy in London, but jars found nearby by the Metropolitan police contained a benign substance. A London building that was once the premises of a Jewish group, still with the organization's name on the window, was the target of an arson attempt on April 17. Attacks continued in London with the April 19 firebombing of the Kenton United Synagogue. On April 29, a terrorist stabbed two Jewish residents of Golders Green, hospitalizing them.
HAYI took credit for all the attacks, but other unclaimed incidents occurred in London that have been treated as connected by the Met. On April 27, arsonists set a fire at the Golders Green memorial wall for Iranian protesters. Last Tuesday, there was an arson attack on the former East London Central Synagogue in Tower Hamlets.
Thus far, the UK government has skirted around addressing the culprit orchestrating the attacks behind the scene.
When the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) raised the UK National Threat Level on April 30 in the wake of the Golders Green stabbings, MI5 said that it was in part due to "a sustained and significant tempo of state-linked threats including to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions."
Starmer, in a May 1 speech on the state of the Kingdom, did mention that legislation would be fast-tracked to " tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran," but he stopped short of attributing recent attacks to Iran, and listed the problem as one of many tributaries to rising antisemitism.
While HAYI has claimed responsibility for the attacks, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley and Security Minister Dan Jarvis had declined to comment on the group and its potential links to Iran.
Counter Terrorism senior national coordinator Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, on April 19, acknowledged that many of the attacks seemed to have involved criminals employed to carry out the attacks, and while she said that it was a tactic often visited by Iran, she didn't confirm the Islamic Regime as responsible.
Plausible deniability with HAYI taking responsibility
Until the arrest of Al Saadi, there was plausible deniability with HAYI taking responsibility, though, as the US criminal complaint noted, the organization had all the hallmarks of an Iranian proxy, with a suspiciously rapid buildup of media and operational infrastructure as soon as it appeared.
The allegations against Al Saadi, however, make it difficult for Starmer and other European leaders to ignore Iranian attacks within their territory. The US complaint alleged that HAYI is less of an organization and more of a mask for Kata’ib Hizballah to conduct attacks on behalf of itself and the IRGC. Al Saadi allegedly had a hand in organizing 20 attacks and plots in North America and Europe.
The Iraqi national allegedly told an undercover officer that they usually have third-party paid criminal actors conducting attacks in Europe, in line with UK law enforcement's beliefs about many of the incidents conducted in London.
The UK and other countries have long been aware of Iranian attacks on their territory. In 2024, the UK published an Intelligence and Security Committee report detailing that Iran used proxy groups and criminals to attack its enemies, and that Tehran had allegedly used the method at least 15 times since 2022 to attempt to murder or kidnap Jewish or Iranian dissident UK nationals or residents.
In October, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said in an annual threat update that the intelligence organization had tracked "more than twenty potentially lethal Iran-backed plots" since his last presentation a year prior. In July 2024, the UK was among 14 states that issued a joint statement denouncing the Islamic Regime for hiring criminals to attack Jews and dissidents in their countries.
In contrast to the UK skirting around naming Iran, in August, when the Australian Security Intelligence Organization announced Iran had orchestrated at least two antisemitic attacks, this was enough for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to declare the Iranian ambassador persona non grata and expel him, withdraw its own diplomatic mission, and proscribe the IRGC.
With the revelations of the Al Saadi arrest, and the mask ripped off HAYI to reveal what everyone already knew, a strongly worded statement may not be enough.