Iran recruiting minors to carry out attacks against Israeli targets in Europe

Iran is targeting teenagers on TikTok and Telegram, offering €120 for bomb attacks and €1,500 for more serious crimes.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Several thwarted attacks against Israeli targets in Europe are signaling a disturbing trend; Iran is recruiting minors as terrorists-for-hire in Europe, Bloomberg reports.

Incidents in Sweden, Belgium, and Norway involved teenagers with weapons preparing to attack Israeli-associated buildings.

In Stockholm, a 15-year-old boy got into a taxi last May with a loaded gun and asked where the Israeli embassy was.

The boy, unaware of the embassy’s location, called an associate, at which point the cab was stopped by Swedish authorities.

In Gothenburg, a 13-year-old fired shots at Israeli defense company Elbit Systems, with a 16-year-old and a 23-year-old laying down explosives in thermos flasks at the same location months later.

Swedish investigators at the time could not determine whether they were acting independently or as part of a more extensive network.

In May, Belgian authorities stopped minors as young as 14 in Brussels from attacking the Israeli embassy.

In Copenhagen, two explosions were heard close to the Israeli mission, and there was some suspicion that youths involved in other attacks were also behind the explosions.

Peter Nesser, a terrorism researcher from Norway, told Bloomberg how children are being recruited on TikTok and Telegram, offering them €120 for bomb attacks and €1,500 for more serious crimes.

Most of the young people who decide to participate have no notion of why they are carrying out the attacks or who is asking them to do them.

Sweden and Norway are countries with minimal policing and with a large number of immigrants from the Middle East.

Iran, having seen its proxy terror groups decimated by Israel, is looking to Europe to recruit its new terrorists.

Last January, an explosive device was discovered just outside Israel’s embassy in Sweden.

Stockholm’s bomb squad immediately neutralized the device, and the incident was declared “an attempted terror attack” by Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman.

Embassy staff said they noticed the object on the grounds surrounding the building, and when the police arrived on the scene, they denotated it securely and controlled.