French authorities suspect that Iran orchestrated an attempted attack on Bank of America’s headquarters in Paris at 0330 on Saturday.
They said common criminals staged the incident, apparently for pay through an intermediary.
A police patrol of sensitive sites in central Paris spotted two individuals attempting to detonate an improvised explosive device outside the Bank of America offices near the Champs-Elysees.
One of the suspects was filming as the other handled the device, which included five liters of fuel and a detonator containing 650 grams of explosive powder.
One suspect, a minor from Senegal, was arrested at the scene.
He told police he had received €602 through Snapchat to carry out the attack.
The other suspect managed to flee.
The arrest of two more suspects was announced yesterday.
The Bank of America offices were closed and no employees were present at the time of the failed attack, but officials said the device could have been lethal had it exploded.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said he saw connections between the failed attack and similar incidents in neighboring countries possibly orchestrated by Iran amid the war between it and the United States and Israel.
The overseas branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is believed to have created the name Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right to claim credit on social media for recent arson attacks against Jewish civilian targets in Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium since the start of the war. Those incidents also occurred at night and harmed no one, with the perpetrators local common criminals or ne’er-do-wells acting for pay.
Three brothers of Iraqi origin with Norwegian citizenship were arrested in connection with the 8 March detonation of a homemade bomb outside the consular entrance to the US Embassy in Oslo.
The powerful blast occurred before dawn on a Sunday, when the embassy was closed. But the entrance was damaged.
Police labeled the explosion terrorism.
The brothers had not been known to police for criminal or extremist behavior.
There are certain to be further primitive terrorist attacks against US government and commercial targets by paid local low-life, Iranian regime sympathizers or disturbed persons triggered by the war.
Bank of America likely was targeted because its name and logo glaringly link it to the United States. But all US banks and corporations loom as targets.
A bigger concern is that the IRGC could orchestrate sophisticated terrorism in the US and other Western countries, with US government and military facilities and personnel looming as targets along with Israeli and Jewish facilities.
Sophisticated terrorist attacks against US corporations and banks are less likely but cannot be ruled out.
US banks and corporations should review and if necessary upgrade access controls on a global basis.
Out of caution, personnel should not linger outside US government and military facilities in the US or abroad.
Personnel should curtail their exposure to Israel-linked facilities globally.
Jewish communities throughout North America and Europe and indeed the world should review and if necessary bolster access controls.
