SHOCK AND OUTRAGE AS IRANIAN DIPLOMAT ARRESTED IN TERROR BOMB PLOT

Opponents of the theocratic fascist Iranian regime inside Iran are regularly imprisoned, tortured and hanged, often in public. An estimated 100,000 political prisoners have been murdered since the Ayatollahs seized control of Iran in 1979. Outside the country, the mullahs preferred option is assassination or terrorist attacks. They have trained Ministry of Intelligence & Security (MOIS) agents implanted in every European embassy. Their job is to track down and eliminate political dissidents or enemies of the fundamentalist regime. 

It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Belgian police arrested an Iranian couple with Belgian citizenship on Saturday, after 500 gm of explosives and a detonator were found in their car. A joint statement from the Belgian Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Belgian Federal Intelligence & Security Agency said that the two terrorists were aiming to detonate the bomb at a massive gathering of the main Iranian democratic opposition movement in Villepinte, near Paris. Over 100,000 ex-pat Iranians and supporters of the National Council for Resistance in Iran (NCRI) were attending the conference, calling for the overthrow of the mullah’s regime. 

Keynote speakers at the conference included President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Many prominent North American, EU, Middle East and international politicians were also in attendance at the rally, where a targeted terrorist attack would have caused widespread casualties. I myself was at the rally and was impressed by the impassioned speeches by Giuliani and others demanding regime change and freedom and justice for the Iranian people. During the rally, the charismatic leader of the NCRI – Mrs Maryam Rajavi – called on the EU to unite behind the young dissenters who have risked their lives in demonstrations and protests that have continued across Iran for the past 6 months.

The Belgian authorities also confirmed that an Iranian diplomat had been arrested in Germany in connection with the terror plot. The diplomat, identified only as Assadollah A., born on 22 December 1971, was apparently the Vienna station chief of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). He had been in Vienna since 2014. It is alleged that he had handed over the bomb and detonator to the two other terrorists in Luxembourg and was on his way back to Vienna when he was stopped and detained. This news, on the eve of a visit to Austria by President Rouhani of Iran and the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, should send shockwaves across the EU, who still seem determined to pursue a policy of appeasement with the homicidal Iranian regime. The fact that the mullahs are prepared to utilise European embassies as factories for bomb-making and terrorism aimed at murdering EU citizens is an outrage. Such gangster behaviour can only be answered in one way; Iranian embassies should immediately be closed across Europe and their diplomatic staff expelled. The proposed visit of Rouhani and Zarif to Austria and other EU countries should be cancelled and the UN Security Council should demand an immediate enquiry into the attempted atrocity.

The days of kow-towing to this medieval and murderous regime are over. Europe must follow the lead of the Americans and show that we support the Iranian people in their uprising and their bid to end the tyranny that they have suffered for four decades. But for the vigilance of the Belgian Security and Intelligence Service and the Belgian and German police, dozens of innocent people would have been maimed and killed in Villepinte at the weekend. Murderous attempts of this magnitude can no longer be ignored.

STRUAN STEVENSON

Coordinator

Campaign for Iran Change (CIC)

Struan Stevenson was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an international lecturer on the Middle East and is also President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA)