Reports Tie Iranian Diplomat to Planned Attack on Dissident Group

(New York, NY) - News reports indicate officials in Iran were directly communicating with Asadollah Assadi, the Iranian diplomat who German authorities arrested for plotting an attack on a dissident group in Paris this summer. 

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace noted such activity is part of Tehran’s terror playbook—using intelligence agents who double as diplomats and plot mayhem using Iranian embassies around the world. The Dutch government has accused Iran of plotting at least four assassinations and bombings in Europe since 2015—the year the P5+1 and Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 

“It was Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani himself, who recently threatened Europe with ‘drugs, asylum seekers, bombs and terrorism’ if the international community levied additional sanctions against his regime,” Wallace said. “Yet despite Iran’s bloodstained record, Europe recently unveiled a new Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), an attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran, which aim to prevent further state sanctioned murder by depriving the regime of funding. INSTEX jeopardizes European security.”

As February 11 marks the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, UANI maintains the definitive timeline of Tehran’s state-sponsorship of terrorism, from 1979 to 2019. Additionally, to learn more about Iran’s methods, UANI’s research team has recently analyzed the modus operandi of Iran’s intelligence apparatus—its structure, its leadership, its history, and its practices.