Iran accused of using embassies for terrorist activities

Rowan Scarborough:

A report from Iranian dissidents shows how the hard-line Islamic regime places terrorist operatives abroad under the cover of diplomacy.

From Austria to Albania to Iraq, an expansionist Iran has turned embassies into terrorism planning sites to meddle in host governments and hunt down the opposition, according to the report by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The coalition includes the activist chapter known as MEK, which operates far-flung spy networks in Iran.

The report, “Iran Doubles Down on Terror and Turmoil,” presents a big-picture assessment of Iran’s foreign interventions in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and its terrorism-sponsored plots in Europe.

“The mullahs’ regime has funneled billions of dollars to finance its belligerent war agenda in the Middle East while the majority of Iran’s people are living in poverty,” the report states. “As the regime’s officials have conceded, if the regime fails to inflame wars outside Iran’s borders, it would have to fight for survival within Iran’s borders. This is because external conflicts draw attention away from domestic crises.”

The National Council’s 57-page report contains the tale of ruling Muslim mullahs on the march, unleashing abroad a number of state organs and paid militiamen to wage war. They include: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s dominant security apparatus; the Quds Force, a committed band of paramilitary foreign provocateurs; the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and its operations arm, the Organization for Foreign Intelligence and Movements (OFIM).

In Syria alone, the Revolutionary Guard controls as many as 100,000 troops. The Iranians fight alongside forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who the U.S. says has killed thousands of innocent civilians to stay in power.

Some council examples of Iranian “diplomats”:

⦁ Assadollah Assadi. Stationed at the Iranian Embassy in Vienna as a “counselor,” Mr. Assadi is an expert in explosives and played a “decisive role” in killing American forces in Iraq from 2004 to 2008. European authorities arrested Mr. Assadi in July for masterminding a thwarted car-bomb attack on a huge gathering of National Council members near Paris.

MOIS has made the Vienna embassy its hub for orchestrating attacks on dissidents. A German court this month approved Mr. Assadi’s extradition to Belgium.

⦁ Gholamhossein Mohammadnia. The senior MOIS deputy became the Iranian ambassador to Albania in 2016.

Why is Albania important? That same year the MEK completed relocating its headquarters from Iraq to Tirana. The National Council says the embassy has since planned several missions against its members.

“The embassy increasingly came under the control of MOIS agents,” the National Council says.
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There is more.

This is another reason not to allow the Khashoggi issue destroy the efforts to contain Iran.  They are seeking the destruction of the West and especially the US.  Ignoring the Iranian threat because of upset with the Saudis would be a strategic mistake with incalculable downsides.  The Saudis are not saints, but they see their interests in keeping commerce flowing with the West.  Iran does not.