Introduction
The Iranian regime has faced growing nationwide popular protests at home since January 2018 that target the entire theocracy. It has responded with a brutal crackdown and arbitrary mass arrests but has been unable to quell these popular protests.
At the same time, whereas the regime in Tehran is becoming paralysed with ever growing multifaceted crises at home and is becoming more isolated internationally, the organised Iranian opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its President-elect, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, are gathering strong support both at home and abroad.
The Supreme Leader, senior Iranian officials including commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the President have in recent months admitted to the key role that the Iranian Resistance is playing in organising the ongoing protests.
The regime in Tehran knows that the synergy between the protesters in Iran and the Iranian Resistance threatens its existence.
Thus, it has taken the strategic decision to complement the domestic crackdown with confronting the Iranian Resistance outside its borders through terrorism in order to secure its survival. The latest attempt by the regime in this regard were the foiled terrorist attacks against the gathering of the Iranian Resistance in Paris on 30 June 2018 and in Tirana on March 2018.
New orders by the Supreme Security Council to target the Iranian Resistance
Following the two unsuccessful attempts and ongoing anti-regime protests in Iran, the regime sees no other way rather than increasing its terrorist plots against the Iranian Resistance.
While referring to the widespread protests in various cities in August, Hassan Rouhani, the President of the clerical regime, demonstrated his animosity against the PMOI (the principal Iranian opposition group in the NCRI), and said on August 6: “There is nothing wrong with the people’s protests … but it shouldn’t be like some people respond to a group-let (’s requests)”, using a derogatory description to slander the PMOI.
Subsequently, the regime’s Supreme Security Council, in an instruction to the Ministry of Intelligence, the terrorist Quds Force, the IRGC Intelligence unit and other agencies involved in exporting terrorism and fundamentalism, ordered them to take further measures to spy on the PMOI and the Iranian Resistance and to set the stage for terrorist acts. These instructions are as follow:
- The Ministry of Intelligence stations in various European countries were ordered to collect more information from movements and activities and to use more resources.
- The Ministry of Intelligence and the Quds Force should examine the human, political and technical capabilities and potentials for terrorist acts in the European countries, in particular Albania, through the use of non-Iranian mercenaries, such that these actions can be attributed to the “internal conflicts of the Mojahedin (PMOI)” or “natural incidents” and the regime would not be blamed for.
- To justify the already disclosed terrorist plots and scandals in Albania and France (March and July 2018), it is imperative to add to the dimensions of the psychological warfare and the demonisation campaign accompanied by the massive influx of false information and the production of fake documentaries. In this regard, the Ministry of Intelligence and its agents and mercenaries abroad must cooperate with the cultural advisers of the regime in European countries, the overseas directorate of the State Radio and Television, the Islamic Propaganda Organisation and other relevant organisations. The priority is to employ the hirelings and mercenaries of the regime, especially non-Iranian agents who can carry out their mission under the cover of journalism.
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the Quds Force have been ordered to press upon European governments, especially Albania, to curtail the activities of the Iranian Resistance. This task should be done through friendly “governments and parties” in the region, Europe and the Balkans, using political and economic relations.
- The regime’s mercenaries and agents should be dispatched to Albania and used under the pretext of PMOI family members. The Ministry of Intelligence and the Quds Force are required to send their agents, with the help of some so-called non-governmental organisations, in groups under the pretext of the “Family members of the Mojahedin”, with the same pattern of their actions previously in Ashraf and Liberty.
US Authorities Arrest 2 Iranian Spies, Possibly Looking To ‘Assassinate’ Resistance Figures
The United States Department of Justice on Monday announced that two Intelligence Ministry agents of the mullahs’ regime, Ahmadreza Mohammadi Doostdar and Majid Ghorbani, who were spying on and plotting against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), were arrested on August 9, 2018 in the US.
The foiled terrorist bombing of NCRI’s gathering in Paris
On July 2, Belgian Prosecutors announced that two Belgian nationals of Iranian origin, Amir S., born on 26 April 1980, and his wife Nasimeh N, born on 20 September 1984, were charged with “attempted terrorist murder and the preparation of a terrorist offence”. Belgian Prosecutors also said that the arrested couple are both “suspected of wanting to commit a bomb attack in Villepinte (France) on Saturday 30 June 2018 at a conference” held there by the Iranian Resistance.
The Iranian Resistance, based on its sources, identified the two as Amir Sadouni (38) and Nasim Nomeni (34), who pretended to be supporters of the principal Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
The Security and Counterterrorism Committee of the NCRI revealed on July 2 that Amir Sadouni worked in a shipping company operating between the Netherlands and Belgium and secretly travelled to Iran. Nasim Nomeni went to Belgium from Iran in 2009 and married Sadouni. The statement noted that the arrested couple had pretended to be supporters of the PMOI.
According to the authorities and news reports, an Iranian diplomat based in Vienna, Assadollah Assadi, was charged in Belgium and Germany in connection with the plot.
In a statement on July 11, the German Prosecutors said that the Iranian diplomat who was arrested in Germany under a European arrest warrant had commissioned a couple residing in Antwerp (Belgium) in March 2018 to carry out an assault using explosives on the Iranian’s annual grand gathering in France on June 30, 2018.
He gave the suspected couple 500 grams of the explosive TATP in Luxembourg in late June, according to the statement by the German Prosecutors, which also said that the arrested Iranian diplomat was a member of the “Ministry of Intelligence and Security”, whose tasks “primarily include the intensive observation and combatting of opposition groups inside and outside of Iran.”
A spokesman for the Belgian federal prosecutor said to NBC News on July 5 that “the couple had picked up the TATP in Luxembourg from the Iranian diplomat and were fully aware of the risk involved of using this unstable explosive; they had every intention of using it. … They were not naïve.”
When asked if the Iranian diplomat was an agent of any of Iran’s security services, a Belgian judicial source told NBC News, “Practically all employees of Iranian embassies are part of the Iranian Secret Service.”
The Iranian Resistance identified him as Assadollah Assadi, the Iranian regime’s intelligence station chief at the embassy in Vienna since 2014, functioning under the guise of Third Counsellor. Assadi had replaced another diplomat-terrorist by the name of Mostafa Roudaki. Roudaki went to Tehran from Austria and was dispatched to Albania in 2017 as the first secretary of the embassy in order to pursue espionage and terrorist activities against PMOI members who had recently relocated there from Camp Liberty, Iraq. Assadi was the person who gave the final order to the terrorists to attack the June 30th gathering.
At a briefing in Brussels on July 10, a senior official of the U.S. state department said that “The most recent plot in Europe by Iranians is another chapter in a long history that dates back to 1984, when Iran was starting these hijackings on commercial airliners, bombings, assassinations. So when you look at what Iran has done just in Europe since 1984 and continuing up to the present, all nations need to exercise vigilance to protect themselves against the Iranian threat. And this is only the most recent example of Iran using diplomatic cover to plot terrorism.”
The senior official said the U.S. takes the arrest of the Iranian diplomat “very seriously” and is “working very closely with the Belgians and the Austrians and the Germans to get to the bottom of this plot to conduct a bomb attack in Paris that had two Americans speaking, attending”.
The plot was to blow up the Free Iran 2018 gathering in Paris on June 30, attended by tens of thousands of Iranians and international supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Hundreds of dignitaries from the United States, Europe, and the Middle East participated and spoke at the event. Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Bill Richardson (former US Ambassador to the UN), Bernard Kouchner, and Stephen Harper (former Canadian Prime Minster) were among the speakers.
International Condemnation
Lord Carlile (UK government’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation from 2001 to 2011)
Responding to the announcement by Belgian authorities, House of Lords member Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, on behalf of the British Committee for Iran Freedom, said: “Once again there is a clear allegation that Iran’s regime is the state sponsor of terrorism. The danger of Iran’s diplomatic missions supporting terrorists must be investigated thoroughly and exposed, if they are involved as the Belgian police suggest. We must be told if agents of the regime operating in Europe and posing as former members of the MEK are tasked with spying on MEK sympathizers and providing information to assist Tehran’s terror plots.”
Statement on 2 July 2018 by Rudy Giuliani on the terrorist plot against Free Iran Rally in Paris
All the participants at the “Free Iran 2018 – The Alternative” rally in Paris on June 30, appreciate and admire the fine work of law enforcement particularly in Belgium and France in arresting the terrorists who according to the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s office were planning an attack on the gathering supporting freedom from the theocratic oppressive regime in Iran. This accentuates the growing sense that the regime that is the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world is increasingly weakened by constant large demonstrations in over 140 cities. It is also becoming apparent that Madam Maryam Rajavi and the NCRI pose a realistic alternative to this homicidal regime. Nothing could be worse for these misogynists than a movement seen as replacing them headed by a heroic woman.
U.S. Senator Rubio on Twitter
Not surprising an Iranian official was reportedly involved in plotting a terrorist attack against an Iranian opposition event in France. The world should be clear-eyed about the Iranian regime, which remains the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.
https://twitter.com/SenRubioPress/status/1016358280036257793
Newt Gingrich on Twitter
Iranian dictatorship plot to bomb the Free Iran rally in Paris last weekend (stopped by combined Belgian-French-German police effort) involving an Iranian government agent and Iranian terrorists living in Europe shows how frightened the dictatorship is of the Free Iran movement.
https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/1014040693675786246
Two Iranians arrested for terrorism in Albania
Albania’s media reported on Thursday, 22 March 2018, that two Iranians were arrested on the charge of terrorism in Tirana by the intelligence services and the counterterrorism unit of the Albanian police. The aim was to target PMOI members in Albania by bombing their Nowrouz ceremony.
“On Thursday morning, two Iranian nationals suspected of terrorist activity were arrested outside the Bektashi World Center just before the celebration of the Iranian Year (Nowruz) began … The suspects, identified by their initials as 65 years-old F.Z. and 59 years-old S.M., were taking photos at the moment of their arrest. They told the anti-terrorism police and other officers that they were journalists and they had come there upon the invitation of the Bektashi World Center”, According to the media reports.
In a statement on 13 March 2018, the NCRI disclosed details of the Iranian regime’s intervention in Albania and wrote that the clerical regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and their agents at the regime’s embassy in Albania under the framework of cultural activities and meetings in Tehran and Tirana, as well as by employing their mercenaries in the country, are attempting to plot and disseminate information against the Iranian Resistance and the PMOI in Albania.
The Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama disclosed the plot on April 19, 2018. The US State Department has also documented this unsuccessful terrorist attempt in its July 2018 report on the mullahs’ regime terrorism.
Conclusion
The foiled terrorist attacks in Paris and Tirana demonstrate the Iranian regime’s fear for the organised Resistance movement, the NCRI, and its President-elect Maryam Rajavi’s democratic platform for future of Iran as a viable alternative to the ruling religious dictatorship especially amid growing anti-regime popular protests in Iran. It also reveals the true nature of the Iranian regime and its desperate efforts to stop activities of the NCRI to achieve a free and democratic Iran amid growing popularity and support for the opposition coalition inside Iran.
Recommendations
The Iranian regime calculated that it could get away with such unacceptable behaviour in Europe because of European leaders’ ongoing appeasement and focus on trade deals with Tehran. This is the dangerous consequence of the EU’s appeasement policy and should be altered with a robust policy on Iran that focuses on ending Tehran’s support for terrorism and its domestic human rights violations as well as recognising the Iranian Resistance (NCRI) and support the democratic aspiration of the Iranian people.
Such policy is necessary to counter the terrorism of the Iranian regime that now threatens Europe and its citizens. It should include:
- Strong and public condemnation of the Iranian regime by the EU and other European states for plotting such unacceptable terrorist attack and for its misuse of diplomatic missions to plot terrorism especially on European soil.
- prosecution of the arrested regime diplomat by concerned EU member states so that the full extent of the Iranian regime’s spying and terrorist plots against the opposition, both in the past and in future, are documented, investigated and brought to the attention of the public.
- Imposing punitive measures against those responsible and the expulsion of the Iranian regime intelligence officers that operate under diplomatic cover or as former members of the opposition.
Failure to do so will only encourage the regime in Tehran to increase its terrorist attacks on opposition groups and its members and supporters in EU and in Iran.
Iran Liberty 