Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 6, 2026
3 min readLast updated: April 1, 2026
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British counter‑terror police arrested four individuals on March 6 in the UK on suspicion of spying for Iran, targeting sites linked to Jewish communities.
By Sarah Young and Sam Tabahriti
LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - British police arrested four men on Friday on suspicion of helping Iran's intelligence services carry out surveillance of people and locations linked to the Jewish community in London.
Detectives said one of the men was Iranian, while three had dual British-Iranian nationality. The arrests were part of a "long-running investigation", police added, indicating the men's alleged activities pre-dated the U.S. and Israeli bombardment of Iran, which started last Saturday.
British lawmakers and the domestic spy agency MI5 have long warned of threats posed to Britain by Iran. Three Iranians were charged with offences under Britain's National Security Act relating to assisting a foreign intelligence service last May.
In a separate investigation last year, police arrested five men, four of them Iranian, over a suspected plot to target specific premises, which British media said was the Israeli embassy. They were later released without charge.
"The Jewish community and the wider public will understandably be concerned by today's arrests. We continue to monitor the situation closely," interior minister Shabana Mahmood said on X.
Police said the four detained men were aged between 22 and 55 and they were being held in custody after being arrested in Barnet, north London, and Watford, a town 15 miles (24 km) north of the capital.
Six others were also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, and police said searches were ongoing.
Speaking about the current conflict in the Middle East on Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that people would use it to divide the country.
"The government is reaching out to communities across the United Kingdom - Jewish and Muslim alike - making sure communities and places of worship have appropriate, protective security in place," he told a press conference.
Illustrating the threat from Iran, Britain's MI5 spy boss said last October that his agency and British police had tracked more than 20 Iranian-backed plots to kidnap or kill British nationals or individuals based in Britain who were regarded by Tehran as a threat.
Britain and 13 allies, including the U.S. and France, warned of a surge in assassination and kidnapping plots by Iranian intelligence services last year, and weeks later Australia accused Iran of directing two antisemitic arson attacks in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne in August.
Iran has repeatedly denied such allegations, which it says are part of a campaign against it by hostile Western powers.
Britain recorded a 4% rise in antisemitic incidents in 2025, making it the second-worst year on record, a charity which provides security to the Jewish community said. Two men were killed last October during an attack on a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester.
Mahmood said police and security services would continue to use the full range of powers available to them to counter any threat to Britain.
(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti, writing by Sarah Young; Editing by Kate Holton, Gareth Jones and Alex Richardson)
British police arrested four individuals on suspicion of Iran-related spying.
The suspects were accused of surveillance of locations linked to Jewish communities.
The surveillance allegedly occurred at locations tied to Jewish communities in the UK.
The event was reported by Sam Tabahriti and written by Sarah Young.
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