UANI Report Reveals Iran’s Malign Intelligence Activities

(New York, NY) – In July, European authorities intercepted two Iranian suspects in Belgium carrying 500 grams of explosives who were planning to attack a gathering of an Iranian dissident organization in Paris. The foiled plot, for which an Iranian intelligence officer masquerading as a diplomat and three others have been charged by Belgian authorities, bore the hallmarks of numerous past Iranian attacks, including the use of an Iranian embassy for planning and coordination.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), in its report, Iran’s Malign Intelligence Activities, details how Iran’s intelligence apparatus, coupled with terror proxies like Hezbollah, has planned and executed assassinations and bombing attacks of perceived opponents of the theocratic regime in Iran and around the world. In the past year, the frequency of Iranian directed actions has markedly increased, signifying the resumption of an extrajudicial assassination campaign that has been dormant since the 1980s and 1990s, when Iran murdered more than 150 regime opponents in 19 different countries.

Iran’s willingness to murder its critics extends to the United States as well. Thursday, October 11 marked the seven-year anniversary of the attempted assassination of Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s then ambassador to the United States and current foreign minister, in Washington, D.C.

In August 2018, the United States arrested two Iranian nationals allegedly acting on behalf of the Iranian government to conduct surveillance on an Iranian dissident organization and potential Jewish targets in New York and Chicago. The arrest affidavit noted that the suspects had received intelligence training, implying the involvement of Iran’s intelligence services.

The resumption of terrorist plots against opposition figures in Europe and the United States is a worrying trend that signals Tehran increasingly feels it has nothing to lose for murdering its opponents, even on European and American soil. At the same moment that Iran is insisting that the European Union devise ways to block U.S. sanctions designed to deter Iran’s aggression, Iran has chosen to accelerate its lawless conduct against its perceived opponents.

Iran’s malign intelligence activities are an important and under-reported component of the revolutionary regime’s destabilizing conduct around the world. UANI’s new report offers a wakeup call to Europe about the seriousness of the Iranian threat. European governments’ advocacy for continued economic engagement with Iran reinforces Tehran’s belief that it can continue to target regime opponents abroad with impunity. European governments should instead discourage further Iranian trade and investment and other measures designed to provide financial support to Iran.

To read the UANI report: Iran’s Malign Intelligence Activities, please click here.