German prosecutors on Thursday charged a German-Iranian dual national for an attempted arson attack near a synagogue on the orders of the government in Tehran, AFP reported.
Babak J. was instructed by an intermediary "acting on behalf of unknown Iranian state agencies" in November of 2022 to carry out an arson attack on a synagogue in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement quoted by the news agency.
Subsequently, the accused is said to have sought to convince an acquaintance to set fire to a synagogue in Dortmund using a firebomb but was refused.
Babak J.'s handler later named another synagogue -- in the city of Bochum rather than in Dortmund -- as a target, prosecutors said, according to AFP.
"The accused refrained from attacking the well-monitored synagogue in Bochum itself for fear of discovery," they said.
Instead, the suspect tried to set fire to a school building adjoining the synagogue in the western German city, according to prosecutors.
Germany has seen a series of incidents of antisemitic violence in recent years.
In 2019, a neo-Nazi tried to storm a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. When he failed to enter the synagogue, he murdered two passersby.
Germany has been hit by several terrorist attacks in recent years. The worst such attack took place in December of 2016, when Tunisian terrorist Anis Amri killed 12 people and injured dozens more when he drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin.
Last month, German authorities arrested a Syrian man on suspicion of planning to carry out an explosives attack motivated by Islamic extremism.