'Foxtrot enforcer' charged with orchestrating grenade attack on restaurant

An alleged leading member of the Foxtrot criminal network has been charged with arranging for a 15-year-old to carry out a grenade attack on a sushi restaurant in Norway.

Ali Namdar, 21, was recently arrested in Morocco at the request of Swedish authorities after being placed on a list of Europe’s most-wanted suspects and is currently awaiting extradition.

Mr Namdar, who goes by the alias Joker, is wanted in connection with 18 offences in his native Sweden, including attempted murders.

At the time of his arrest, prosecutors in Norway said he was wanted in connection with a number of offences in their country as well.

It has now emerged that Mr Namdar has been charged with orchestrating an attack on a sushi restaurant in Strommen, a town 20km east of Oslo.

The teenager threw a grenade into the eatery on October 22 last year after being recruited in a Signal chat group by Mr Namdar. Details of the attack emerged when the boy, who is now 16, appeared in court and pleaded guilty to throwing the grenade. He denies being involved with organised crime.

The hearing was told a Signal user named Joker contacted the teenager and persuaded him to carry out the attack.

Investigators concluded it was Mr Namdar based on several similar cases that could be linked to him, the court heard.

Show caption: Ali Namdar is suspected of the attempted murder of Iranian d…

Mr Namdar sought to assure the teenager, telling him “bro don't worry, grenade is not going to be a big explosion”.

Police prosecutor Anja Stenersen has told Norwegian broadcaster TV 2 that Mr Namdar was charged, saying “we believe he was the mastermind and the one who ordered this attack”.

Ms Stenersen said that, at the time of his arrest in Morocco, Mr Namdar was accused of being behind a number of serious crimes including a separate grenade attack, a shooting at a house and an abduction.

Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service is investigating whether children and young people were trafficked by Mr Namdar to carry out attacks, said the prosecutor.

Among the offences he is wanted for in Sweden is orchestrating the attempted murder of Iranian dissident Arvin Khoshnood.

Mr Khoshnood told The National about the moment a 17-year-old turned up at his home with a knife last September.

The Foxtrot network, along with its founder, Kurdish-born gangster Rawa Majid, has been placed under sanctions by the US and the UK for carrying out attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets on behalf of Iran by using teenagers recruited on social media.

Foxtrot has unleashed a wave of gang violence in recent years, leading to Sweden’s murder rate becoming one of the highest in Europe.

Majid is believed to be enjoying the protection of Iran, where he was born, after his family escaped from Iraq’s Kurdistan region following Saddam Hussein’s war with the Kurds.

Mohamed Mohdhi, believed to be the network’s second-in-command, was arrested in Tunisia on suspicion of murder in May.

In January, Ali Shehab, 21, was accused of recruiting children to kill rival criminals and was detained in the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.

He was allegedly involved in organising an assassination that Norwegian Johannes Natland was convicted of plotting to carry out.