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UK police charge 3 in arson attack at Persian-language media organization

LONDON (AP) — British police said Friday they have charged three people in an arson attack at a Persian-language media organization in northwest London.

Oisin McGuinness, 21, Nathan Dunn, 19, and a 16-year-old boy were all charged with arson with intent to endanger life, London’s Metropolitan Police Service said in a statement. McGuinness was also charged with dangerous driving. All three are British nationals.

Police said that officers on patrol in the Wembley area of north London on Wednesday night responded to reports of a burning container thrown toward a building. The unspecified container landed in a car park, where the fire went out. There were no reports of any damage or injuries.

The three suspects were arrested after the black SUV they were riding in crashed while being pursued by police.

The incident followed warnings that the conflict in the U.S.-led war against Iran had heightened ethnic and religious tensions in Britain. Persian is the primary language of Iran.

Police are also investigating an attempted arson attack on a synagogue in northwest London earlier Wednesday and an attack last month that destroyed four ambulances owned by a Jewish charity in north London.

While all three attacks are being treated as separate incidents, counterterror police are conducting the investigations due to the nature of the attacks, their locations and the types of buildings involved, the Met said.

Police said they have not declared the incidents as terror attacks and they “retain an open mind” about the motivation behind the attacks.

Iran attacks Bahrain and Kuwait following US strikes, threatens to end talks to end the war

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launched drone and missile attacks Sunday targeting Bahrain and Kuwait in response to U.S. airstrikes that hit the Islamic Republic, and threatened a “complete halt” could come to negotiations to end the war if Washington continues its attacks. Efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf that once carried a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas, without Iran's direct oversight sparked the crossfire now gripping the region. A multinational maritime body overseen by the U.S. Navy said Saturday that it would expand a route near Oman in the Strait of Hormuz to allow for both inbound and outbound traffic — setting up a new flashpoint with Tehran. Iran insists it alone must govern the strait after the war, upending decades of the world considering that the strait was international waters free for all, despite its sitting in Iran and Oman's territorial waters. Tehran has twice attacked vessels going through the Oman route, backed by a United Nations agency, in recent days. Early Sunday, the U.S. military’s Central Command said it struck Iranian military “surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities and minelayer capabilities” following an attack on a ship at sea early Saturday morning. That ship, the Panamanian-flagged tanker Kiku, carried crude oil for the state-run energy company of Qatar, a key negotiator between Iran and the United States.
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