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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is responsible for shooting at German synagogue, officials say
(JTA) — After a century-old synagogue in Essen, Germany, was struck by two bullets last November, news reports connected it to the shooting at a synagogue in Halle three years earlier that had been perpetrated by a far-right German extremist.
But authorities quickly connected the Essen shooting to a different kind of perpatrator: Ramin Yektaparast, a biker gang leader wanted on suspicion of murder in Germany who now lives in Iran and is accused of directing antisemitic attacks from there.
German intelligence officials revealed in December that they believed the Essen shooting and two other synagogue attacks at the same time had ties to Iran. Last week, The Washington Post quoted anonymous German and U.S. intelligence sources who named Yektarapast as a suspect, and as an alleged asset of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. The United States considers the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, though Germany does not.
Yektarapast fled from Germany to to Iran in 2021 after being suspected of the grisly murder of a fellow member of the Hells Angels gang. Involving criminals in terrorism plots is part of Iran’s playbook, a former U.S. counterterrorism official told the Washington Post.
Matthew Levitt, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iranian agents have seen high-level assassination plans foiled and now are turning to “softer” targets in their efforts to sow terror and harm their country’s enemies.
“That’s when the plots targeting Jews come into play,” Levitt said.
Reports of Iran-linked terror cells targeting Jews or Israelis in Europe have been widespread in recent years. Last summer, as a record number of Israelis visited Turkey, Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, and its Turkish counterpart, hunted through Istanbul for an Iranian cell. The cell had reportedly been tasked with targeting Israeli tourists in retaliation for the killing of an Iranian colonel in Tehran, allegedly by Israeli operatives.
Later last year, the Washington Post reported that Iran had targeted prominent Jews and Israelis around the world, including the French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy. Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, has also been targeted, according to German authorities.
Iran’s attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets abroad are not new. Multiple investigations have implicated Iranian agents in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people. Officially, the case remains unsolved. (Two of the agents suspected in the bombing are among Iran’s senior officials today.)
The reports of Iranian involvement in attacks against Jews in Germany come as the country has reported a rise in antisemitic hate crimes. National data showed a 29% rise in reported hate crimes against Jews in 2021 compared to the previous year. This week, new data from Berlin showed that reports of antisemitic crimes rose sharply in 2022, with nearly 700 incidents reported compared to 386 in 2019, according to Judische Allgemeine, a German-Jewish newspaper. The incidents included both violent and nonviolent incidents, including vandalism.
That period coincided with an anti-vaccination movement that included comparisons between pandemic restrictions and the Holocaust, a possible crime under Germany’s restrictive laws against Holocaust denial and minimization. In Munich, for example, a Jewish leader filed antisemitic harassment charges against two leaders of a protest rally on Kristallnacht, the anniversary of the acceleration of the Nazis’ campaign against the Jews.
That period also saw a crackdown on activity by far-right extremists in Germany. Authorities arrested dozens of people in December who they said were planning to try to overthrow the government. Last May, German police found explosives and antisemitic, far-right literature at the home of a teenager they suspected of planning to attack at a school, also in Essen.
Germany announced a comprehensive plan to combat antisemitism in December, the country’s first.
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The post Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is responsible for shooting at German synagogue, officials say appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Downed Planes Raise New Perils for Trump as Tehran Hunts for Missing US Pilot
Traces of an Iranian missile attack in Tehran’s sky, amid the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, April 3, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Two US warplanes were downed over Iran and the Gulf, Iranian and US officials said on Friday, with two pilots rescued and a third still missing and being hunted by Tehran’s forces.
The incidents show the risks still faced by US and Israeli aircraft over Iran despite assertions from US President Donald Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that their forces had total control of the skies.
The first plane, a two-seat US F-15E jet, was shot down by Iranian fire, officials in both countries said.
The second plane, an A-10 Warthog fighter aircraft, was hit by Iranian fire and crashed over Kuwait, with the pilot ejecting, two US officials said.
Two Blackhawk helicopters involved in the search effort for the missing pilot were hit by Iranian fire but made it out of Iranian airspace, the two US officials told Reuters.
The degree of injuries among the crew of the aircraft remained unclear. The status and whereabouts of the missing F-15E crew member was not publicly known.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was combing an area near where the pilot’s plane came down in southwestern Iran and the regional governor promised a commendation for anyone who captured or killed “forces of the hostile enemy.”
Iranians, who have been pummeled by American air power for weeks, posted gleeful messages celebrating the plane downings. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X that the U.S. and Israel’s war had been “downgraded from regime change” to a hunt for their pilots.
Trump has been in the White House receiving updates on the search-and-rescue operation, a senior administration official told Reuters. The Pentagon and US Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
NO SIGN OF END TO WAR
The prospect of a US service person being alive and on the run inside Iran raises the stakes for Washington in a conflict with low public support and no sign of an imminent end.
Iran has officially told mediators it is not prepared to meet with US officials in Islamabad in coming days and that efforts to produce a ceasefire, led by Pakistan, have reached a dead end, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
The US and Israel opened the campaign with a wave of strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28. The war has killed thousands and threatened lasting damage to the global economy.
So far, 13 US military service members have been killed in the conflict and more than 300 have been wounded, according to the US Central Command.
Iran has rained down drones and missiles on Israel. It has also taken aim at Gulf countries allied to the US, which have so far held back from joining the war directly for fear of further escalation.
In a security alert on Friday, the US embassy in Beirut said Iran and its aligned armed groups may target universities in Lebanon and urged US citizens in the country to leave while commercial flights are still available.
Israel has been waging a parallel campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon after the militant group fired at Israel in support of Iran.
TRUMP THREAT TO STRIKE BRIDGES, POWER PLANTS
On Friday, as Trump threatened to hit its bridges and power plants, Iran struck a power and water plant in Kuwait, underlining the vulnerability of Gulf states that rely heavily on desalination plants for drinking water.
On Thursday, Trump posted footage on social media showing dust and smoke billowing up as US strikes hit the newly constructed B1 bridge between Tehran and nearby Karaj, which was due to open this year, and said more attacks would follow.
“Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!” he wrote in a subsequent post.
On Friday, a drone hit a Red Crescent relief warehouse in the Choghadak area of Iran’s southern Bushehr province.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation said its Mina al-Ahmadi refinery had been hit by drones. Other attacks were also reported to have been intercepted in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Missile debris landed near the Israeli port of Haifa, site of a major oil refinery.
Oil markets were closed after benchmark U.S. crude prices gained 11% on Thursday following a speech by Trump that offered no clear sign of an imminent end to the war.
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US-Iran: Diplomatic Push Falters as Qatar Steps Back and Pakistan Talks Stall
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Emilie Madi
i24 News – Diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire between Washington and Tehran appear to have reached an impasse, as key regional mediators pull back and broader talks stall.
According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, Qatar has informed US officials that it does not wish to take a central role in mediating between the two sides. Officials familiar with the matter said Doha has made clear it is “not willing” to lead negotiations or act as the primary broker.
At the same time, Pakistan-led efforts to bring Iranian and American officials together have also stalled. Mediators say Tehran has refused to attend proposed meetings in Islamabad, calling Washington’s conditions “unacceptable,” further underscoring the widening gap between the two sides and the growing difficulty of restarting dialogue.
Despite the deadlock, diplomatic channels have not fully closed. Turkey and Egypt are continuing parallel efforts to revive talks, with discussions underway about potential alternative venues, including Doha and Istanbul.
US President Donald Trump downplayed the impact of recent military developments on diplomacy, including the destruction of a US fighter jet during operations in Iran. Speaking in a brief exchange with an NBC News journalist, he said: “No, not at all. It’s war. We are at war.”
He further fueled speculation with a cryptic social media post on Truth Social, writing: “Keep the oil, anyone?” criticising international allies on Friday over rising fuel prices. Trump appeared to mock allies such as the United Kingdom, writing that they should “keep the oil.”
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Report: Iran Retains Significant Missile Capability Despite Weeks of US-Led Strikes
Iranian missiles are displayed in a park in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 31, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – Despite weeks of sustained airstrikes by the United States and its allies, Iran has reportedly managed to retain a substantial portion of its military capabilities, particularly its ballistic missile arsenal.
According to a report by The New York Times citing US intelligence assessments, Tehran has developed methods to mitigate the impact of the strikes, allowing it to preserve and restore key parts of its missile infrastructure.
While the Pentagon has claimed responsibility for striking more than 11,000 targets over five weeks and reducing the rate of Iranian missile fire, intelligence officials now caution that the actual damage may be more limited than initially assessed. Iranian forces are reportedly able to rapidly repair or reactivate missile launchers stored in heavily fortified or underground facilities, sometimes within hours of being hit.
Analysts also point to the widespread use of decoy sites, which may have drawn strikes away from operational assets. Many of the targeted locations are believed to have contained dummy installations, complicating efforts to accurately gauge the degradation of Iran’s ballistic capabilities. Combined with deep underground bunkers and dispersed storage networks, this approach is seen as enabling Tehran to maintain a higher level of readiness than publicly estimated.
US intelligence officials assess that this resilience reflects a deliberate strategy: preserving a credible long-range strike capability as both a deterrent and a bargaining tool in any future negotiations, while ensuring regime survival and continued regional influence.
Despite sustained air dominance claimed by Washington and its allies, Iran’s adaptive tactics continue to complicate battlefield assessments, leaving the true balance of power in the conflict uncertain.