Iran, the world's "leading state sponsor of terrorism," has been recruiting gang members and drug dealers in Europe to murder Iranian dissidents, Israelis and Jews, according to a report published in September by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) organization and journalists from nine outlets, including France's Mediapart, Germany's Der Spiegel, Spain's Infolibre and Israel's Shomrim.
This is happening at the same time as Europe, and most of the world, led by the Biden-Harris administration, are doing all they can to stop Israel from putting an end to the Iranian regime and its multiple terrorist and proxy wars against Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Sudan.
US and European authorities have termed it the "Iranian Transnational Assassinations Network." One of these networks -- there are several -- is led by a drug dealer. According to the US Treasury Department:
"The network is led by Iranian narcotics trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti (Zindashti) and operates at the behest of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Zindashti's network has carried out numerous acts of transnational repression including assassinations and kidnappings across multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to silence the Iranian regime's perceived critics. The network has also plotted operations in the United States...
"The MOIS and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have long targeted perceived regime opponents in acts of transnational repression outside of Iran, a practice that the regime has accelerated in recent years. A wide range of dissidents, journalists, activists, and former Iranian officials have been targeted for assassination, kidnapping, and hacking operations across numerous countries in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. The regime increasingly relies on organized criminal groups in furtherance of these plots in an attempt to obscure links to the Government of Iran and maintain plausible deniability."
The criminal groups hired by Iran increasingly target Israelis and Jews in Europe, including Israeli embassies and private Jewish individuals:
In Sweden, two violent criminal gangs, "Foxtrot," headed by Iranian-born criminal Rawa Majid, and its rival "Rumba," headed by Ismail Abdo, have reportedly been recruited by Iran, which pays them to commit terror against Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe. The two gangs have been connected with repeated shooting attacks against the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm. Foxtrot, according to Swedish public broadcaster SVT, was also behind an attack using hand grenades close to the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen on October 2. Three "Swedish" men were arrested in connection with the attack.
An Iranian-recruited terror cell arrested in France was plotting the murder of four Israeli citizens working in France, as well as three senior members of the Jewish community in Germany, according to the Shomrim report. The terror cell, apparently recruited to set fire to buildings belonging to Israeli-owned companies in the south of France, was headed by "a major drug dealer" from the Lyon area called Umit Bulbul, whom French authorities believe to be currently in Iran. The cell's operations were carried out by Algerian-born French national known as Abdulkarim S, who has previously served prison time for his involvement in a gang warfare double-murder in Marseilles, in addition to drug trafficking.
According to the Shomrim report:
"In order to maintain a degree of separation from the terror cells it operates in Europe and to ensure plausible deniability, there is no direct contact between Tehran and members of the cells. In the case of the recently detained French cell, instructions on where and when to carry out attacks were relayed via international networks of criminals and drug smugglers."
One of the Israelis targeted in France, Roey, was informed by French security services that an Iranian-directed terror cell was planning to kill him. For months, he received more such alerts; was told that it would be safer for him to leave the country, and that he would have to move between no fewer than six different apartments during his time in France. In addition to the Iranian dissidents that it has been hunting for years, the Iranian regime now literally hunts Jews in Europe.
Iran, according to reports, was behind the foiled terrorist attack against the Chabad House of Athens, Greece, which hosts a Jewish community center and a kosher restaurant. Here, Iran, via a Pakistani named Sayed Fakhar Abbas, offered to pay a local acquaintance in Greece 15,000 euros for each Jew that he managed to kill.
According to the Washington Post, Iran hires Eastern European criminals as well as "old" and established gangs, such as Hells Angels. Iran, in other words, has extended its operations from having terrorists as proxies to having criminals as proxies. The Washington Post wrote:
"In recent years, Iran has outsourced lethal operations and abductions to Hells Angels biker gangs, a notorious Russian mob network known as 'Thieves in Law,' a heroin distribution syndicate led by an Iranian narco-trafficker and violent criminal groups from Scandinavia to South America."
Earlier this year, an Iranian couple in Sweden, pretending to be Afghan refugees -- who had arrived in 2015 with fake identities but were acting at the behest of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC -- were caught plotting to kill three Swedish Jews.
There is nothing new about these Iranian terrorist activities, but they appear to have accelerated since October 7, at least when it comes to Israeli and Jewish targets. It is estimated that Iran has been hiring criminals for murder abroad for at least a decade.
According to Britain's MI5, the situation is about to get much worse: the UK will see a "staggering rise" in assassination attempts by Iranian-hired criminals, but also by criminals hired by Russia, with both countries recruiting from the underworld to "do their dirty work."
MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said that in the UK alone, his organization had foiled 20 "potentially lethal" plots backed by Iran since 2022 with the majority of the threats until now aimed at Iranians abroad.
McCallum said that radicalized individuals and a revived Islamic State group have combined to create "the most complex and interconnected threat environment we've ever seen."
Despite all this clear knowledge about the Iranian regime's assassination and terrorist plots on European soil -- and the IRGC's crucial role in them -- the leadership of the European Union and the UK refuse to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization. Instead, European countries target Israel with arms boycotts, constant condemnation and general opprobrium, although Israel's fight against Iran belongs at least as much to Europe and the West, no matter how hard -- out of dread -- they might try to deny it.
As stated by the US Congress, the IRGC "trains, funds, arms, and shares intelligence with dangerous proxy forces throughout the Middle East and abroad" and also, as described by the Wall Street Journal, prepared and trained Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists for the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel. If they think that pressuring Israel not to confront this existential threat will make it disappear, they are sadly mistaken. As in World War II, it is by supporting Israel in defeating aggression that they will stop it.
The US Congress, Israel and thousands of Iranians have urged the European Union to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Last year, by an overwhelming majority, the European Parliament passed a resolution to that effect, but the EU nevertheless refused to designate the IRGC as such. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell claimed there were legal obstacles, however, that claim has been refuted as a lie.
After Iran's direct missile attack on Israel on April 13, the European Parliament again, by an overwhelming majority, adopted a resolution to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization, while strongly condemning Iran's unprecedented attack on Israeli territory, and "vowing full support for the security of Israel and its citizens against the threats of the Iranian government and its proxies." It also requested that the EU add Hezbollah to the terror list. Borrell, once more, simply refused, arguing that "listing this organisation as a 'terrorist organisation' would have no practical effect."
German MEP Hannah Neumann said in response:
"What more does this regime have to do until you finally wake up to the harsh realities? The IRGC is a terror organisation ...The drones and missiles attacking Israel and attacking our ships in the Red Sea are manufactured in Iran, and we should have sanctioned all those involved months ago."
Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers bluntly called Borrell a liar:
"You shamelessly lied to protect the IRGC. We won't miss you, Mr. Borrell, but I'm sure the mullahs will."
The IRGC is not designated a terrorist organization by any of the individual European states either, including the UK, but in May, the Swedish parliament voted in favor of designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Sweden has also been pressing the EU to do the same.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in October:
"The only reasonable consequence is that we get a common terror classification, so that you can act more broadly than the sanctions that already exist."
Designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization would make it possible to press terrorism charges and prosecute both members of the organization and those supporting it. It seems as if the majority of European leaders are once again determined, as in appeasing Churchill's crocodile, to be "eaten last."
Kasra Aarabi, director of IRGC research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), said:
"Putting IRGC on the EU terror list is an important step to protect the national security, to protect our communities, particularly the Iranian diaspora and the Jewish community because there is a genuine terror threat and because they are not only targeting and conducting terror plots but they are also nurturing homegrown Shia islamist radicalisation, using the Isis and Al Qaeda methods. However, because IRGC is not proscribed (as a terror group), these activities are not outlawed."
Perhaps little Israel will take on Iran, thereby saving the Europeans, along with the Iranian people, from their cowardly, quisling-like rulers.
Are European politicians really that eager for the votes of their unassimilable newcomers -- who appear to be planning to take over Europe? Or are Europe's politicians afraid that if they fail to delegitimize Israel at every opportunity, the newcomers might inflict even more terrorism on European soil? Does Europe really want to live in a state of being permanently extorted? The price goes only one way: up.
Robert Williams is based in the United States.
Jagdish N Singh