Officers from Metropolitan Police said firefighters were called early Tuesday to a building in east London, where gates at a former synagogue were set alight, causing minor damage.

Authorities said initial CCTV evidence indicated the fire was started deliberately at around 0510 GMT.Given the site’s connection to the Jewish community, the case has been taken up by Counter Terrorism Policing London, the force added.The incident comes amid a broader spike in antisemitic attacks across London, including arson cases and last week’s stabbing of two Jewish men.

The Golders Green area, home to a large Jewish population, has been among locations affected.Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday convened public figures to discuss what he described as a “crisis” in response to the rise in such attacks. He said authorities were examining whether any incidents may have links to foreign actors.

“Our message to Iran or to any other country that might seek to promote violence, hatred or division in society is that it will not be tolerated,” Starmer said.

A group identified as Harakat Ashab Al-Yamin Al-Islamiya (HAYI), which is believed by officials to have links to Iran, has previously claimed responsibility for similar attacks in Britain and elsewhere in Europe.Police said investigations into the latest arson incident are ongoing.

The three-judge panel dismissed Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions and poor mental health had caused him to plead guilty involuntarily in March 2020, concluding there was no evidence he had suffered from a mental impairment that affected his legal judgment.

“He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty,” the judges wrote in their decision.

The court said the Australian national, now 35, had attempted to mislead judges about his mental state in what it described as “a weak attempt to advance an appeal,” adding that evidence showed he had made an informed and rational decision when he admitted guilt.

Tarrant carried out the attacks in March 2019, driving to two mosques in Christchurch during Friday prayers and opening fire with semiautomatic weapons, killing 51 people and injuring dozens more in New Zealand’s deadliest modern mass shooting.

His guilty pleas a year later spared victims’ families and survivors from a lengthy public trial, which many feared would give him a platform to spread extremist views.The appeal court noted that Tarrant’s bid to challenge those pleas was filed 505 days after the legal deadline, but it proceeded to hear the matter because of its public significance.

During a five-day hearing in February, Tarrant argued that “irrationality” caused by poor mental health had temporarily led him to abandon his white supremacist ideology and plead guilty.

The judges rejected that argument, saying prison staff, mental health professionals and his former lawyers did not support his claims. They also noted that he had accepted the summary of facts presented by police and the sentencing judge, while the evidence against him was overwhelming.

That evidence included video footage of the attack that Tarrant filmed himself and livestreamed online, clearly showing his face, as well as a manifesto outlining his racist ideology that he published under his real name before the shootings.

The ruling also disclosed that Tarrant sought to abandon the appeal shortly after presenting his case in February, but judges refused, saying the matter was of “significant public interest and should be finally determined.”They said he appeared to conclude the hearing was not going in his favor and then attempted to withdraw the case after proceedings ended.

Tarrant was sentenced in August 2020 to life imprisonment without parole, the first such sentence in New Zealand’s history. He remains in Auckland Prison.The judges allowed him to abandon a separate appeal against that sentence, which had been scheduled to be heard later in 2026.

The attacker was believed to be targeting a nearby police station but struck a civilian residence before reaching the intended site, said Muhammad Sajjad Khan, a local police official. The blast caused significant casualties among residents inside the house, he added.

The death toll was confirmed by Bannu assistant commissioner Ikramullah Khan, who said the injured had been shifted to nearby medical facilities.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, suspicion is likely to fall on Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has intensified attacks in the region in recent years, frequently targeting security installations.

Bannu lies in a volatile region bordering areas that were formerly part of Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt, long affected by militancy and counterinsurgency operations.

Pakistan has repeatedly accused neighboring Afghanistan of failing to eliminate militant sanctuaries used to plan cross-border attacks, an allegation denied by the Taliban authorities in Kabul.