An Israeli arms producing company in Czech Republic was set on fire on Friday.
The blaze, which did not cause injuries, broke out at a warehouse in a business park in the central city of Pardubice before dawn, the Czech fire brigade said.
Czech police are investigating the fire at the arms company on Friday as a potential terrorist attack, the interior minister said, after an anti-Israel group claimed responsibility.
‘We are examining all available information. There is a likely link to a terror attack,’ interior minister Lubomir Metnar said on X.
Czech police chief Martin Vondrasek told reporters that police were investigating ‘a deliberately started blaze’ and ‘intensively seeking those who committed the crime’.
Arms producer LPP Holding said in a statement that the fire was at its premises.
Two Czech media reported that they had received an email from a group called The Earthquake Faction saying that it had set fire to ‘a key production centre for Israeli weapons’.
‘We are verifying the reliability of the information,’ the police said on X.
LPP Holding, which develops and produces drones and other military equipment, said in a statement that ‘a fire broke out in one of our buildings this morning’ and that it was cooperating with investigators.
The Czech news agency CTK said that the LPP had recently unveiled plans to produce drones with Israel’s Elbit Systems, which has been the target of attacks in Europe.
In 2024, a 13-year-old boy instructed and armed by others opened fire on Elbit’s Swedish office, and men planted explosives there in the same year.
The 24 Palestine Action group was charged over breaking into Elbit’s British factory, also in 2024.
The Voxpot news site, which received the Earthquake Faction's statement, said the group’s ‘internet domain was registered yesterday’.
The fire brigade said that the blaze destroyed a warehouse made of metal and spread to an administrative building in the business park before it was put out.
The Czech Republic, an EU and NATO member of 10.9 million people, is a staunch ally of Israel, which is at war with Iran and Lebanon having already been in a conflict with Hamas in Gaza.
