New revelations have emerged on the attempted bombing of an Iranian opposition group in Paris late last month. According to media sources, the Israeli agents of the Institute for Special Operations, commonly known by its abridged name, Mossad, were instrumental in capturing two suspects that had planned an attack on the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) summit that took place in late June.
Reportedly, Mossad personnel, together with their counterparts from Belgium, France and Germany, conducted a long series of activities that crossed several countries. Although details are scarce, the operation included long manhunts and surveillance operations. The result was the location of the two individuals caught red-handed with a detonator and 500 grams of TATP, the powerful explosive manufacturable from common materials, and a favorite of terrorist bomb makers. The same substance was used in the London bombings of 2005, and the Paris attacks of 2015.
For a bit of a recap, Belgian authorities announced back in June that Brussels police intercepted two individuals suspected of planning a bombing attack. Reportedly, the investigation into the pair uncovered a plot to attack the early-July conference of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)—an umbrella bloc of opposition groups in exile that seek an end to Shi’ite clerical rule in Iran. As part of their work, NCRI reports on all the various mischief Iran busies itself with around the world. European authorities then uncovered the involvement of one Iranian diplomat identified only as Assadollah A, typically stationed in Austria but arrested in Germany. Austria has since stripped the man of his special diplomatic status.
Iranian authorities are still making light of the entire incident, explicitly accusing European countries of fabricating the whole story. Iran’s foreign ministry called the whole case a “false flag” designed to vilify Tehran. “How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its ‘plotters’ arrested,” Foreign Minister Zarif tweeted. Iranian officials later summoned France’s ambassador, to protest against the staging of the opposition meeting. Tehran “strongly protested against the French support of activities of the terrorist organization,” referring to an exiled NCRI. It’s important to pause briefly and understand the utter audacity of this message by the Iranians to their French counterparts: a group of people were just saved from being murdered, seemingly at the hand of an Iranian diplomat and his co-conspirators, and they are the terrorists? It’s interesting to contemplate the thought process that produces this bizarre improvised victim blaming. But we digress. The point is, Iran is absolutely insistent that its government had nothing to do with the incident.
Indeed a Foreign Ministry spokesman even claimed the two suspects arrested in Belgium were in fact members of the People’s Mujahideen, part of a militant opposition group in exile that seeks to topple the current regime in Iran. According to Tehran’s version, the whole series of events is just an attempt to “sabotage” the recent European tour of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani. Of course the possibility of an anti-Iran conspiracy to delegitimize Iran is absurd. All of the countries involved—France, Belgium, and Germany—are backers of an appeasement stance on Iran and support maintaining the JCPOA, the nuclear deal President Trump recently backed out of. The last thing they would want to do is fabricate a story framing Tehran.
On a final note, there seems to be a trend emerging of international intelligence agencies—often with the involvement of the Israelis—uncovering Iranian treachery, and Tehran flatly denying the charges. Back in May, Israel announced that it had retrieved thousands of documents from a secret Iranian facility detailing the extent of their nuclear weapons aspirations. The material was shown to other Western intelligence organizations and is apparently still under review. The only response Iran had was to call the entire story patently “absurd.” Now when Mossad and their European partners uncovered yet another Iranian plot—this time on European soil—their only recourse is to claim the whole thing is a hoax.
Will there be an end to the slack being given to this regime?
