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2024-10-06 Terror Networks
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Foiled attack on Chabad Athens offers glimpse into Iran’s anti-Jewish terror plots
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[IsraelTimes] Since 2020, Islamic Republic is thought to be behind at least 33 thwarted kidnappings and murders of officials, Jewish and Israeli targets in West — likely an undercount
As the Iran-Israel conflict intensifies, Tehran is roiling the West with a wave of attempted hits and kidnappings against targets in Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
and the United States. Washington and its allies have reported a sharp rise in such plots linked to the Islamic Theocratic Republic in recent years. Since 2020, there have been at least 33 liquidation or abduction attempts in the West in which local or Israeli authorities allege an Iran
 ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
link, Rooters found in an examination of court documents and public statements by government officials.
Among recent alleged targets: a building that houses a Jewish center and kosher restaurant in downtown Athens.
From his perch in Iran, a Pak named Sayed Fakhar Abbas recruited an old acquaintance living in Greece and directed him to attack the site, Sherlocks allege in documents submitted to judicial authorities in the case and viewed by Rooters. Abbas told his contact that he was working for a group that would pay some 15,000 euros per kill.
In a January 2023 WhatsApp exchange detailed in the documents, the two men discussed whether to use explosives or arson in the attack. Abbas stressed the need to provide proof of casualties after the strike.
"There are secret agencies" involved, he said, without naming names. "Do the job in a way that does not leave any room for complaints by them."
The previously unreported documents include hundreds of pages of evidence gathered during Greece’s pre-trial probe, including witness testimony, police statements and details of WhatsApp messages. They purport to show how Abbas groomed his contact, a slim-built fellow Pak named Syed Irtaza Haider, as the two drifted between prosaic talk of life back home and plotting attacks.
Greek authorities arrested Haider and another Pak last year, saying police helped dismantle a terrorist network directed from abroad that intended to inflict "human loss." The two men face terrorism-related charges. They deny wrongdoing.
Haider, released from pre-trial detention this spring with restrictions, says he’s innocent. In an interview, the 28-year-old told Rooters he sent Abbas images of the building but intentionally stalled on carrying out any attack, hoping to get paid without harming anyone.
"It was all talk but no action," he said. His lawyer, Zacharias Kesses, said Haider "never participated substantially" in illegal activity.
Alleged ringleader Abbas also faces terrorism-related charges. Back home in Pakistain, he is wanted on suspicion of murder, a Pak police official said. Abbas remains on the lam and couldn’t be reached for comment. The third suspect also couldn’t be reached. That man has denied wrongdoing, according to Iraklis Stavaris, a lawyer who represented him when he was charged.
Greek police declined to comment. The case awaits a decision by judicial authorities about whether to proceed to trial, according to Haider’s lawyer.
The Mossad, which assisted the Greek probe, has said the planned attack was orchestrated by Iran as part of a multinational network operated from the Islamic Theocratic Republic . Israel declined to comment on the case or other Mossad activities.
Iran denies the Mossad’s claim. The operational techniques fit patterns seen in some other alleged Iranian plots, however. That includes the type of target — Israeli or Jewish civilians — and the use of hired non-Iranian assassins. At least two other cases tallied by Rooters allegedly involved Pak nationals.
Targets of other recent alleged plots include senior US officials as well as Iranian journalists and others in the diaspora. Former US president Donald Trump
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
was briefed by US intelligence on "real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him," his campaign recently said. Tehran has publicly denied involvement in some alleged plots in the US.
The shadow war is also playing out in Europe, site of most of the alleged plots tallied by Rooters.
"Since 2020, Iran has dramatically intensified lethal plotting against former US officials, Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests in the United States and abroad," said Brett Holmgren, acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a US intelligence-coordinating agency.
Tehran has in turn accused its rivals of terrorist acts, pointing to killings of senior members of its security forces by Israel and the US.
The Iranian mission to the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
in New York told Rooters that the Islamic Theocratic Republic "harbors neither the intent nor the plan to engage in liquidation or abduction operations, whether in the West or any other country." It called such allegations "fabrications" meant "to divert attention from the atrocities committed by the Israeli regime" in the conflict in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...>
, has over the years repeatedly called for an end to Israel, and Tehran has been accused of antisemitism by US and other Western politicians. Iran has said it respects Judaism but opposes Israel.
The recent rise in alleged hit attempts comes amid escalating tensions between the Islamic Theocratic Republic and Israel.
Iran on Tuesday fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, driving millions into bomb shelters, amid Israel’s escalation against Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah over the past two weeks. Israel also recently said it thwarted an Iranian-backed liquidation plot targeting prominent people.
HIRED ASSASSINS
The Rooters tally of Iranian plots includes incidents that were alleged or found to have been orchestrated by the Islamic Theocratic Republic , conducted on its behalf, or directed by someone in Iran or with close ties to it.
It is likely an undercount, because it captures only cases in which authorities have publicly alleged an Iran connection. Some governments are wary of publicly calling out Iran due to diplomatic considerations, said Matthew Levitt, director of the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.
Mossad director David Barnea said last year that over the previous year, Israeli intelligence had worked with international partners to disrupt 27 teams that tried to mount attacks abroad that were "orchestrated, criminal masterminded, and directed by Iran." Israel declined to provide details.
One key trend among the alleged plots reviewed by Rooters is the use of hired hit men, including organized criminals and gang members. Washington and its allies say the outsourcing is an attempt to obscure links to the Islamic Theocratic Republic .
In December, a German court sentenced a German-Iranian man to two years and nine months in prison for planning an arson attack on a synagogue on behalf of the Iranian state. After learning of the security measures around the synagogue in Bochum, he threw a Molotov cocktail at a building next door, the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf found. The man admitted throwing the device at the building, according to the court’s ruling.
In echoes of the Greek case, he was recruited by a man living in Iran, another German-Iranian who is being investigated in Germany for two unrelated murders there, the court found. It said the Iran-based man was following orders by Iranian "government agencies." Tehran has called the allegation "baseless."
In the US, there have been at least five alleged Iran-linked liquidation or abduction cases brought by prosecutors since 2020. Three involved murder-for-hire plots.
Prosecutors recently charged a Pak man who they say had close ties to Iran in connection with a foiled attempt to assassinate a US politician or government official in retaliation for the US killing in January 2020 of Tehran’s most prominent military commander, Qassem Soleimani
 .
Former US president Trump was discussed by the suspect as a potential target, but the 2024 scheme wasn’t conceived as a plot to assassinate him, according to a person familiar with the matter, as Rooters previously reported.
After spending time in Iran, the suspect, Asif Merchant, flew from Pakistain to the United States to recruit hit men for the plot, according to a July criminal complaint. Merchant was indicted last month for allegedly attempting to commit terrorism and murder-for-hire. Merchant has pleaded not guilty
"Wudn't me."
. His lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
After Soleimani’s death, Iran’s Khamenei said harsh Dire Revenge awaited the "criminals" responsible. Iran’s UN mission told Rooters that Tehran’s policy is to lawfully prosecute those responsible for killing Soleimani.
’LETHAL OPERATIONS’
The target of another murder-for-hire plot in the US was an Iranian-American journalist and prominent critic of the Islamic Theocratic Republic .
Prosecutors allege members of an Eastern European crime group attempted to assassinate the journalist under the direction of a man in Iran. An Azeri living in the US allegedly received instructions and a $30,000 payment from the Iran-based man. The Azeri turned up at the journalist’s Brooklyn home with an AK-47-style assault rifle, prosecutors say.
The target, Masih Alinejad, told Rooters she was shocked when US authorities informed her the armed man had come to her house. She said she had heard someone at the door but hadn’t answered because she was engrossed in a video call.
Alinejad, a vocal critic of Iran’s head-covering laws for women, was previously the target of what prosecutors say was a foiled Tehran-backed kidnapping plot. Iran has denied that.
Alinejad, 48, said she was forced to abandon her home, leaving behind friends and neighbors for a series of temporary hideouts. She said she’s had to relocate nearly 20 times in recent years under US law-enforcement protection. In one long stint, she and her husband were separated from her stepchildren.
"We don’t feel safe anymore," Alinejad said of Iranian dissidents living in the US.
US prosecutors have charged three men in the murder plot. A fourth — the Azeri man, Khalid Mehdiyev — was named as a co-conspirator in an indictment filed last month. The Justice Department had no comment; Mehdiyev’s lawyer didn’t respond to comment requests.
Two of the other men have pleaded not guilty in the case. The third man faces charges of aiding murder and other crimes in his home country of Georgia, according to Czech authorities, who arrested him last year.
Matthew Olsen, the US assistant attorney general for national security, said Tehran has failed to hide its hand in the wave of plots on American soil.
"We’ve managed in a number of these cases to identify the malicious actors who are part of these proxy groups, but also to expose their direct ties back to the Iranian regime," Olsen said in an interview.
Among the Iranian officials named by Washington as responsible for directing attack planning is Mohammad Reza Ansari. The US says he is part of a Revolutionary Guards unit focused on "lethal operations" in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
Ansari tried to kill two top former US government officials beginning in late 2021 with the help of another Iranian, Shahram Poursafi, according to Washington.
US prosecutors have charged Poursafi, who they say is a Revolutionary Guards member, with plotting to murder former US National Security Adviser John Bolton and another unnamed individual. Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo identified himself as the second target in one of his books.
Bolton, in an interview, said he believes he remains a target of Iran. "I think this is the most unprecedented campaign of attempted liquidations against American officials and former officials in our history," he said.
Iran has called the allegations "ridiculous and baseless." Poursafi remains on the lam. He, Ansari and the Revolutionary Guards didn’t respond to requests for comment.
HEIGHTENED TENSION
At least six of the plots tallied by Rooters in Europe since 2020 involve Israeli or Jewish targets. Nearly all of those allegedly involve hired hit men.
It was during this time that Abbas contacted Haider from Iran. Haider was living in Greece as an undocumented migrant, according to the legal records Rooters viewed. Haider told Rooters that the two knew each other from back home. Both came from the same town of Alipur in Punjab
...1. Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2. A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3. A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots
....
province, eastern Pakistain. Both are Shi’ite Moslems, the faith of Iran’s theocracy, he told Greek authorities.
Haider studied engineering in Pakistain and arrived in Greece in 2019, he told Rooters. He settled on the island of Zakynthos, a popular tourist destination. He lived in an apartment building with other Pak nationals and found work in an olive grove and other seasonal jobs.
Abbas also came from Pakistain. Authorities there suspect him of criminal masterminding an October 2021 abduction and murder, according to a police official who works in Punjab province.
Greek police identified an Instagram account in the documents under the name Shani Shah Sherazi that they say belongs to Abbas. The last post to the account was in mid-October 2021.
Abbas, a married father of two, crossed into Iran by road in February 2022 and hasn’t returned, a Punjab intelligence official told Rooters.
It was after arriving in Iran that Abbas recruited Haider. By April 2022, the two were in contact via WhatsApp, according to Haider’s testimony to the investigative magistrate and messages detailed in the legal documents.
In a November 2022 WhatsApp exchange, the two men discussed targets and methods of lethal attacks. Abbas told Haider to emphasize to other potential recruits what the group was willing to pay: "The reward per head is five million rupees" — roughly 16,000 euros at the time.
The men frequently discussed money. Haider badgered Abbas to send funds, according to the WhatsApp records. Abbas complained in December 2022 that he couldn’t pay his rent and had to borrow cash.
"When the job is done, for the rest of our lives, we won’t want money again," Abbas wrote to Haider that month.
A STAGED MURDER
As 2022 drew to a close, Abbas pressed Haider to obtain images of the Chabad of Athens. The two-story building, on a side street in a bustling part of the capital, houses the Jewish center, which has a prayer area and a kosher restaurant.
Haider enlisted the help of the third suspect to supply photos and video of the building in December 2022, the man testified to the magistrate. The third suspect also told authorities he was unaware the building was a Jewish center. The third man said it was only later that Haider relayed Abbas’s proposal to pay for killings, whereupon he immediately refused.
In early January 2023, Haider traveled to Athens and recorded videos of the Chabad of Athens and surrounding area, he testified. In forwarding the footage to Abbas, Haider described the area as full of shops and tourists. Abbas responded by saying "good job."
Their methods were amateurish at times.
Haider staged a fake murder in an apparent effort to hoodwink Abbas and his bosses. While in Athens, Haider convinced a Nepalese-born man to play the part of the victim in a mock execution, promising to pay him 2,500 euros, according to testimony by the Nepalese man contained in the documents. Haider dressed him in clothes stained in what he said was blood from a slaughtered goat, then told him to lie on the floor and play dead so Haider could video him, the man testified. The Nepalese man couldn’t be reached for comment.
Haider told the investigating magistrate that he staged the ruse because Abbas was pressuring him to kill people.
MOUNTING PRESSURE
By the second week of January 2023, Abbas and Haider were focused on the Chabad of Athens restaurant, Sherlocks allege in the documents. Abbas suggested arson, the messages indicate.
"Anything you can, do it quickly, I won’t be given much time," Abbas wrote on January 9.
"It will be done, I promise," Haider responded.
Within weeks, authorities swooped in. Acting on an anonymous tip, Greek police searched Haider’s apartment and detained him for possessing fake identity papers. Prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges the next month. In testimony after his arrest, Haider described the group Abbas recruited him into as a large but unnamed Iran-based organization.
As he awaits trial, Haider says he is working two jobs on Zakynthos — in a restaurant kitchen and as a security watchman. He has trouble sleeping. He faces prison in Greece, but if he beats the charges, home isn’t an option, he said, because he fears retribution from Abbas or his circle.
"I am afraid because I don’t know what will happen here," he said, "and I cannot go back to Pakistain." 
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