IRANIAN DIPLOMAT ‘LED SPY NETWORK IN EUROPE’
▶ Tehran’s activities shown to include assassinations and terrorist attacks
Iran is running a wide-ranging espionage network across Europe with the aim of procuring technology to boost the country’s missile arsenal, disrupt opposition groups and carry out targeted assassinations.
Opposition sources and intelligence reports revealed yesterday that Asdollah Assadi, the Iranian diplomat arrested in Germany in June for orchestrating a bomb plot against an opposition rally in Paris, headed the Tehran-run Europeanwide network.
Assadi remains in detention in Germany pending an extradition request from Belgium where the alleged bombers were intercepted.
Activists said the decision to authorise the attack in Paris was taken by Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council in January this year and that the head of foreign intelligence and movements in the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Reza Amiri Moghadam, passed control of the plot to Assadi in March.
Half a kilogram of the homemade explosive TATP and a detonator was seized from the car of a married couple who were identified as being residents of the Belgian city of Antwerp. Another alleged facilitator of the plot was arrested and extradited from France to face trial.
Among those who attended the rally of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran on June 30 was Rudy Guiliani, the former New York mayor who now serves as Donald Trump’s lawyer, and the former prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper. Some of the politicians who were at the event at Villepinte outside Paris now plan to join the trial as civil complainants, the resistance council said.
German domestic intelligence reports reviewed by The
National revealed that Iranian agents are active throughout the country. At least four of the country’s 16 states reported missile proliferation activity by Iranian agents.
The provincial report on foreign espionage in Baden-Wurttemberg state last year said Iran was trying to penetrate its scientific and military institutions. “The focal points of the current Iranian proliferation-related activities is in the acquisition of vacuum and control technology, measuring instruments and other equipment,” the report said.
The intelligence bureau said the focus of Iranian activity appeared to have shifted after the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from nuclear proliferation to rocket and missile technology. The report noted the rapid expansion of Iran’s missile arsenal and the increasing range of its weapons.
“Iran continues its ambitious expansion in rocket and carrier technology, areas that are not included in the agreements. Iran reported in an official statement on September 23, 2017, the successful test of the medium-range rocket, Khorramshahr 12, and thus the country now has at least three missile types with ranges up to 2,000 kilometres.”
Officials in Hamburg also noted the challenge posed by the “ambitious Iranian programme to modernise its missile technology with the aim of further increasing the range”.
While the reports uniformly state Iran to be in compliance
with the nuclear deal, it is unclear how much of the activity identified is prohibited under international sanctions or Germany’s own security laws.
“The reports confirm that Iran has not stopped proliferation activity even if there may have been a significant decrease in illicit nuclear attempts,” said Benjamin Weinthal, a fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies. “There must be questions over whether Germany has reported these to the UN committees overseeing the nuclear deal and rocket development work.”
Seven states also reported cyber-attack activity by Iran. Six said they were tracking Iranian involvement in Hezbollah networks within their territory.
The state of North Rhine-Westphalia identified arms procurement activities and recruitment by Hezbollah as issues for the security services. “Germany represents, for the organisation, an operating room, which is dedicated to logistical support services and the generation of finances as well as the recruitment of new members,” its 2017 report said. “For Germany, this would confirm that attacks by Hezbollah in the European space are possible.”
A former diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad said Assadi arrived in Vienna just as the station emerged as the “nerve centre” of Iran’s European spy network, according to the National Council of Resistance of Iran report.
“The station of the MOIS in Vienna, on the third floor of the embassy, is the headquarters and the co-ordinator of the MOIS stations and agents in Europe,” the group said. “According to statements of various officials of the regime, the government of Austria and the Iranian regime have extensive, yet low-profile relations. This has created a very suitable situation for setting up the main station of the MOIS in Europe.”
It also named the heads of other stations in Berlin and Paris, claiming these were among the “most important” outposts under the supervision of the Vienna bureau.
At a press conference in Brussels yesterday, Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said that Iran resumed active terrorist operations in Europe in 2016.
Iran has rejected claims of a plot, claiming the incident was staged to disrupt President Hassan Rouhani’s trip to Switzerland and Austria.
It has demanded Assadi’s diplomatic immunity be recognised and the third secretary be allowed to return to his post. German prosecutors have, however, concluded that Assadi is linked to the MOIS and its efforts to “observe and combat” opposition groups.
A report titled Iran’s Deadly Diplomats in West Point’s Combating Terrorism Centre
Sentinel journal yesterday said Tehran has increasingly used diplomatic cover to carry out assassinations and other terrorist plots in Europe.