Iran “likely” behind attacks on Dutch Jewish sites, experts say

The string of attacks on Jewish and pro-Israel targets in the Netherlands this spring was “very likely” directed by Iran, terrorism experts have told broadcaster NOS, after the US arrest of an Iraqi man accused of coordinating the operation across Europe and North America.

Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi will be tried in the US, the US justice department said on Saturday. The indictment links him to Iran through the Iraqi Shia militia Kataib Hezbollah.

Dutch investigators believe al-Saadi coordinated four attacks: an arson at a Rotterdam synagogue on March 12, an explosion at a Jewish school in Amsterdam the next night, a blast on the Zuidas at a complex housing Bank of New York Mellon on March 16, and an attack on the Christians for Israel office in Nijkerk on Good Friday, April 3.

“It fits a pattern in which Iran attacks others through allied terrorist organisations – so-called proxies,” Bart Wallet, professor of Jewish studies at the University of Amsterdam, told NOS.

Beatrice de Graaf, a terrorism specialist at Utrecht University, said the attacks were “an act of war by Iran, directed against countries it knows support America”.

Wallet said al-Saadi was also preparing attacks in North America, which pointed to professional direction, with execution outsourced to hired criminals.

Dutch police have arrested at least seven teenagers, mostly from Tilburg, over the Rotterdam attack and a foiled Heemstede plot. Justice minister David van Weel told MPs in March that “everything points” to the suspects being recruited, and that Iranian involvement was being “explicitly examined”.

The Dutch public prosecution department said it is in contact with US authorities and has not ruled out further arrests. It is not yet clear whether the Netherlands will seek al-Saadi’s extradition.

The Dutch security service AIVD last year linked a failed 2024 assassination attempt in Haarlem on regime critic Siamak Tahmasbi to Iran; in March, another regime critic working for the Dutch police was shot in Schoonhoven.