Iran directed two terror attacks on Jewish targets in Belgium, security chief says

Similar threats were detected across the border in the Netherlands, where intelligence services thwarted several operations.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Belgium’s top threat assessment official said Thursday that Iran ordered two attacks on Jewish targets in the country in March, linking the incidents to a broader Tehran-directed campaign against Jewish sites internationally.

Gert Vercauteren, head of Belgium’s Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (CUTA), told Francophone broadcaster RTBF that those behind the attacks “certainly” acted on orders from Iran.

One incident occurred shortly before 4 a.m. on March 9, when an explosive device went off outside a synagogue on Rue Léon Frédéricq in Liège. Elsewhere in Belgium that same week, a vehicle was set on fire in Antwerp’s Jewish quarter. No one was injured in either attack.

Federal prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation into the Liège bombing within hours.

Vercauteren’s comments identify the two incidents as coordinated operations rather than separate acts of vandalism.

He described the March attacks as the high point of Iranian-directed activity in Belgium.

Similar threats were detected across the border in the Netherlands, where intelligence services thwarted several operations.

Among them was a plan to bomb a synagogue in Heemstede.

One of the principal suspects accused of coordinating the attacks across Europe was recently arrested in Turkey.

Belgian authorities have recorded no additional strikes connected to the network since that arrest.

Belgium currently maintains its national terror threat assessment at level three out of four, classified as “serious.” That level has remained in effect since two Swedish football fans were fatally shot in Brussels in October 2023.

The country experienced an increase in security concerns following Hamas’ attack in Israel on Oct. 7 and the outbreak of the war in Gaza.

Vercauteren said general threat reporting had subsequently begun to normalize before later geopolitical developments again affected Belgium’s security environment.

CUTA assesses the country’s threat level through continuing intelligence collection and analysis of radicalism and potential extremist activity.