Iranian terror cell narrative appears suspect

After four ambulances owned by Jewish charity Hatzola were set on fire, Israel lobbyists – including Nigel Farage – were quick to claim an ‘Iranian terror cell’ was responsible. The lobby said this was clear proof of Iranian hostile acts on UK soil and demanded a terror ban on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The lobby’s media allies, naturally, amplified the claim.

None of the ‘mainstream’ media, of course, bothered to wonder why a crack ‘Iranian terror cell’ would choose four nearly-defunct ambulances as their first target. But others did:

Suspect

The supposed ‘terror cell’ behind the 23 March 2026 attack had never been heard of before March 2026. Its emblem spells ‘Islamic’ wrong in Arabic. Its statement claiming credit for the attack mentioned the “Land of Israel”, a phrase no Islamic group would use.

The language of the group’s statements is also, according to Amsterdam’s VU university’s political anthropologist Younes Saramifar, a weird mix completely inconsistent with people as familiar with Arabic as religious Muslim Iranians would be. Saramifar concluded that:

The language of announcements shows a clear lack of fluency in Arabic. The language is generated by an AI tool. Furthermore, the electronic device on which the new video was edited does not have Arabic or English as its native language in its operating system. This is clear from where the colon and the exclamation mark are placed in the sentence. This shows that the group is neither native Arabic nor English speakers. Native speakers are habituated to managing these technical glitches. Based on their language use, I don’t think they are a direct proxy or a sleeper cell associated with the Axis of Resistance.

It seems the courts and Crown Prosecution Service agree, as the suspects have been released on bail this morning, 26 March 2026. As Irish comedian and political activist Tadgh Hickey pointed out, this “weirdly lenient” decision doesn’t really fit with the idea of a ‘terror cell’:

Israel has a long and well-documented history of ‘false-flag’ attacks to achieve political ends, including in London.

Featured image via the Canary