Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) The brutal attack on author Salman Rushdie brought renewed attention to the persistent threat of Iran-backed terrorism. The vicious stabbing, which took place on stage at an event in New York, is the most visible recent example of this threat, but it is far from the only one. And copycat violence is likely if U.S. officials do not do more to oppose Iran’s malignant efforts to intimidate the American public.
Just days before Rushdie was attacked, the Department of Justice unsealed its case against Shahram Poursafi, a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who had been actively engaged in efforts to assassinate a former White House National Security Advisor, John Bolton. Subsequent reports revealed that Poursafi’s long-term plans involved similar plots against a former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and perhaps others.
A month before the Poursafi case was unsealed, credible evidence surfaced to suggest that Bolton, Pompeo, and a number of current and former American and European officials may have been targets of Iranian terrorism due to their support of the MEK. In mid-July, it was revealed that an Albanian court specializing in organized crime had issued search warrants for a dozen Iranian nationals who were suspected of affiliation with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
The Albanian investigation was relevant to the Poursafi case because the operatives had been tasked with monitoring the MEK headquarters in Albania. Home to approximately 3,000 members, the headquarters were the target of a foiled an Iranian terror plot in 2018. When last month’s search warrants were executed, Albanian authorities explained that they were acting to prevent a terrorist attack.
The planned truck bombing of the headquarters in Albania was a precursor to another bomb plot later in 2018, which targeted the organization’s parent coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In June of that year, the NCRI held its annual free Iran summit just outside of Paris. In attendance were tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates from across the globe, as well as hundreds of political dignitaries. Had the attempted bombing of the summit not been thwarted by European law enforcement, it would have resulted in untold casualties.
The Paris bomb plot was most recently discussed by Dowlat Nowrouzi, the UK Head of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, where in an interview yesterday on the Arab News show Frankly Speaking, she reminded viewers that the role of Iranian diplomat Asadollah Asadi in transporting the bomb before “handing it over to a terrorist network” implied the Iranian regime’s involvement in the planning was beyond doubt.
Tehran’s campaign to eliminate the main opposition to its rule has not been limited to terrorist plots. For years, the Iranian intelligence service, known as the MOIS, has spearheaded an unrelenting campaign to demonize the MEK by relying on so-called former members who have levied outlandish allegations against the group and duped Western journalists into parroting their false claims.
Among these agents was an individual named Hassan Heyrani, whose name has appeared in a number of mainstream publications and broadcasts. Last month, the Special Court for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime in Albania issued search warrants for the premises and property associated with Heyrani, and ten other collaborators. In addition to the search of their apartments and offices, their electronic equipment, including mobile phones, computers, tape recorders, and documents were seized.
According to the court order, these searches were carried out to prevent “any possible terrorist attack.” The order further stipulated that these persons stand accused of “receiving money from Iran’s secret services, the Qods Force and the IRGC to obtain information about the MEK in Albania.”
The MEK has challenged a number of outlets’ decisions to cite Heyrani and other operatives, and in at least two cases in Germany, a court in Hamburg ordered two newspapers to retract false statements or face fines for their failure to vet the sources of disparaging claims about the MEK.
Further details of that campaign were revealed last year in an open letter by a repentant Iranian Intelligence Ministry collaborator, Hadi Sani-Kani. Addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the letter professed a willingness to testify before an international court or any relevant institution about his recruitment, and the ensuing four years he spent spreading false information about the MEK in his own articles and media interviews.
U.S. authorities have yet to fully appreciate their potential to serve as a corrective influence on disinformation peddled by Tehran, which reinforces the impression that there is no alternative to theocratic rule and that a democratic alternative does not exist in Iran.
