Five men, four of them Iranian nationals, were arrested on May 3 just hours before a planned attack on Israel’s embassy in west London. The nationality of the fifth man has not been released.
“[T]he Home Secretary described [it] as one of the biggest counter-terror operations in recent years,” The Telegraph reported on Wednesday.
The arrests occurred across England, including in Swindon, west London, Stockport, Rochdale and Manchester, according to the report.
British counter-terrorism police arrested three more Iranians over the weekend in a separate investigation, bringing the total number of Iranians arrested to seven, the Metropolitan Police announced on Sunday.
Asylum hotels were raided as part of the operation, according to The Telegraph.
“The investigation is still in its early stages and we are exploring various lines of enquiry to establish any potential motivation as well as to identify whether there may be any further risk to the public linked to this matter,” said Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, according to Reuters.
These developments come as the United Kingdom faces increasing concerns over Iran-linked terrorism, with authorities saying they have disrupted more than 20 such plots since 2022.
In December 2023, a Chechen was found guilty of conducting hostile reconnaissance on the headquarters of Iran International, a Persian-language television channel in west London.
In March 2024, Pouria Zeraati, a journalist with Iran International, was stabbed by two men near his home in southwest London. Two Romanians have been charged in the attack.
Britain recently imposed sanctions on a Sweden-based criminal group with alleged ties to Tehran, accused of targeting Israeli and Jewish entities in Europe.
The Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) has said that Iran may have been involved in the explosions and gunfire that took place near the Israeli embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen last year.
