600 Euros and a Lighter

*This article was originally published in French

Excerpt

Last Friday evening, on the rue de la Boétie in Paris, a 17-year-old recruited via Snapchat for 600 euros attempted to ignite an explosive device outside the Bank of America. He was arrested lighter in hand. Two accomplices were detained. France’s counterterrorism prosecutor opened an investigation. Laurent Nuñez, France’s national intelligence coordinator, cited a “strong suspicion” of a link to Iran and “similarities” with the wave of attacks sweeping across Europe: a synagogue in Liège, a Jewish school in Amsterdam, Jewish ambulance vehicles set on fire in London. Always the same targets: Jewish or American. Always the same method: teenagers or petty criminals paid to plant devices. State terrorism on the cheap, carried out under the banner of a previously unknown group, Ashab al-Yamin, which intelligence services regard as a proxy for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

None of this is new.

Simone Rodan-Benzaquen is senior envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).