Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, Milstein writing fellow at the Middle East Forum and director of MEF’s Syria office, spoke to a March 30 Middle East Forum podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
The channel spreads propaganda for groups such as Ashab al-Yamin and well-known Iran-backed groups such as Kata’ib Hezbollah.
This month, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyah (Ashab al-Yamin), a Shia terror group claiming to be part of the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, attacked varied locales in Europe. The group’s initial statement was posted on Sabereen News, a Telegram channel for Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. The channel spreads propaganda for groups such as Ashab al-Yamin and well-known Iran-backed groups such as Kata’ib Hezbollah. Ashab al-Yamin announced its claims against American and Zionist-linked targets around the world on Sabereen News. Attacks in Greece, Belgium, Amsterdam, and London were claimed by the group, although some of them have yet to be substantiated. A threat against a Bank of America branch in Paris was thwarted.
Anti-Zionist leftists suggest these attacks are Israeli false flag operations conducted to “try to justify bringing European countries into the war with Iran.” Mainstream commentators have floated this suggestion, but it “is actually based on, firstly, a lack of understanding of prior history of Iranian-linked attacks within Europe, and, secondly, actually misunderstanding the facts surrounding these attacks.”
Some Ashab al-Yamin videos include messaging with Hebrew text and are consistent with the modus operandi of many pro-resistance channels that issue threats against Israeli-linked or Zionist targets. These threats are primarily “quite small scale” and amateurish, although they do comport with prior reports of disrupted plots in Europe that “have been reportedly tied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).” Some of the cases involve Iranian operatives who pay petty criminals to conduct an attack in the name of Ashab al-Yamin for propaganda purposes. The attacks are then used for recruitment purposes through Telegram and other online social media networks.
The pronouncements of the group indicate that, given the capability, “they would also try to attack targets in Canada and the U.S.”
Attacks against “Israeli, Zionist, [and] American-linked targets” are considered legitimate by the leadership of the Iranian “resistance axis.” The exhortation for “Mujahideen around the world or even your lone wolves” to attack has global ramifications. The pronouncements of the group indicate that, given the capability, “they would also try to attack targets in Canada and the U.S.”
In the recent London attack, the perpetrators were apprehended, but no information has been forthcoming as investigations continue. The unfortunate consequence of delaying the release to the public of information on the attack, albeit necessary for “operational security reasons,” fuels conspiracy theories. For the most part, the British mainstream, as in most Western countries, is “broadly with Israel.” That could change, however, with the rise of anti-Zionism on the political left in the U.K. The longer the war against Iran goes on, “there is the potential over the long term” that public sentiment will turn against Israel.
