France suspects link to pro-Iranian group in foiled Paris bomb plot
People stand outside the Bank of America headquarters in Paris on Wednesday.
Photo: EPA France suspects a pro-Iranian group known as HAYI to be behind a foiled attack on Bank of America’s Paris offices, its anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Wednesday, while stressing the link has not yet been formally established.
HAYI, which stands for Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya, or Movement of the Companions of the Right Hand of Islam, had posted a video on social media on March 23 targeting Jewish interests and communities in France and Europe, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
It added the video specifically named Bank of America’s Paris headquarters in the French capital’s 8th district. “In light of the aforementioned video targeting this US bank and the modus operandi observed in similar operations across several European countries, this attack … appears to be linked to the HAYI group, although this has not yet been formally established at this stage of the proceedings,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The group – unknown until a spate of attacks across Europe on US, Israeli and Jewish targets for which it claimed responsibility – appears new.
A French police van is parked outside the Bank of America headquarters in Paris on Wednesday.
Photo: EPA Security sources say it appears to be using a model previously linked to Iran to recruit criminal groups or petty criminals to carry out attacks. “After the failed bomb plot by Iranian intelligence in Paris in 2018, the Iranians turned to paid criminal gangs to carry out incidents so it is harder for it to be traced back to Tehran,” a senior Western diplomat said. “These operations target opponents and Jewish-linked elements.
There have been a multitude of these across Europe.
Our expectation is that Iran will now start to activate these networks,” the diplomat said.
No new threat has yet been identified by French authorities, but the scenario is plausible, two security sources said.
The Iranian embassy in France did not immediately respond to a request for comment and declined over the weekend to comment on French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez’s remarks pointing to Iran’s possible involvement.
The device used in the foiled March 28 attack, a five-litre (1.3 gallons) petrol can taped to a large pyrotechnic charge, was found by forensic experts to contain a 650-gram (23 oz) active-material cylinder with a fuse, the prosecutor’s office said.
Paris police found it was the most powerful
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