The Iranian regime has increased its attempts to kidnap and murder government officials, dissidents, journalists, and activists in the US and around the world, as well as “Jewish civilians or those with links to Israel,” The Washington Post reported.

According to the report, based on government documents and interviews with 15 officials in the Middle East, Europe, and Washington, Iran depends mostly on proxies to carry out its nefarious plans, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to petty criminals and drug deals to carry out murders for the regime.

The officials said that between 2015 and 2017, the Iranian regime killed at least three dissidents in western Europe, including an Iranian activist who was gunned down in front of his home in The Hague. In addition, Dutch authorities say that Iran was involved in another assassination attempt as well as attempted bombings in Europe. In 2018, an Iranian diplomat in Vienna was arrested for allegedly recruiting an Iranian couple in Belgium to place a bomb at a huge rally in Paris for the Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group.

The officials say that Iran’s schemes have markedly increased in the past two years, both in pace and in ambition.

Ramin Seyed Emami, an Iranian Canadian musician and performer who hosts a popular Persian-language podcast, was warned last year by officers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that he was on a list of people abroad deemed a threat to the Islamic Republic.

The officers warned him that he shouldn’t travel to any countries bordering Iran and to be cautious of anyone trying to contact him online.

“The general feeling I got was that they were beginning to take this issue seriously,” Seyed Emami said. “They realize if people are being threatened on their own land, it’s a whole different story.”

A spokesperson for the Canadian intelligence service stated that the agency “is aware that hostile state actors, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, monitor and intimidate Canadian communities, with diaspora communities often disproportionately targeted. … CSIS is actively investigating several threats to life emanating from the Islamic Republic of Iran based on credible intelligence. Ultimately, these hostile activities and foreign interference undermine the security of Canada and Canadians, as well as our democratic values and sovereignty.”

Matthew Levitt, a former U.S. counterterrorism official and now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that Iran has a long history of deadly operations but also of monitoring targets and developing plans for future killings and abductions. However, now, “they’re not collecting information so they can try to abduct and kill people if they want to. They are actively trying to abduct and kill people.”

Norman T. Roule, a veteran CIA officer, said that Tehran’s terror activities are being watched by other hostile countries. “If the international community has no red line for these operations, why shouldn’t another rogue country feel it could undertake similar aggression without cost?” he said.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)