IRAN has been secretly recruiting criminal gangs and thugs as proxies to wage a silent war against dissidents in the West.
Hitmen from notorious groups with underworld ties are being given orders from Tehran to carry out assassination attempts and kidnappings inside Europe and America.
These include hitmen from Hells Angels biker gangs, the Russian mob gang “Thieves in Law,” and other criminal syndicates across the world.
An investigation by the Washington Post has found Tehran plotting against a former Iranian military officer living in exile, an Iranian American journalist in Brooklyn, a women’s rights activist in Switzerland, LGBTQ+ activists in Germany and at least five journalists at Iran International in London.
More political figures who have been vocal in criticising the murderous regime of Tehran have been targeted separately.
Recent years have seen Iran deepening its ties with criminals to carry out its assassination plots on Western soil.
Former vice-president of the European Parliament Dr Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca was shot in the face outside his apartment building in Madrid, Spain, last November by a hitman on a motorcycle.
He accused Tehran of orchestrating the attempt on his life – which left his jaw shattered and requiring reconstructive surgery using metal plates.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Vidal-Quadras declared he was the Iranian regime’s “Public Enemy No. 1”.
John Bolton, former national security adviser, believes Iran tried to pay someone to either kidnap or kill him, potentially on US soil.
The alleged plot would have him travel to Washington DC, corner Bolton in a garage and kill him.
Iran reportedly offered £250,000 to a hitman for the killing, Bolton claims.
Meanwhile, Hossein Abedini, a member of the National Committee of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) living in the UK, dodged several assassination attempts ordered by Tehran.
Thugs carrying automatic weapons jumped in front of his car and started firing while he was visiting Turkey.
He was rushed to Istanbul’s International Hospital where he spent 50 days in a coma.
He told The Sun: “My car was ambushed in broad daylight and I was shot several times in the chest and abdomen.
“A bullet very narrowly missed my heart and another bullet severely damaged my liver. Only when the assassins wanted to fire the final shot, the bullet got jammed into the muzzle of the gun.”
“I was in a coma for some 50 days and my chances for survival were very low.”
Iranian agents dressed as local police officers tried to enter the hospital and kill him, he claims.
“[Hitmen] made a second attempt [to kill me] by pretending to be friends visiting me at the hospital. They were scared off by the arrival of real friends who had come to see me.
“In one case I was saved by a co-incidental visit by the Turkish president, whose mother was in one of the wards.”
IRAN being accused of having its tentacles spread over terror networks across the globe is not a new phenomenon.
As far back as 1996, two Iranian dissidents were murdered in Turkey.
A plane bound for Athens was hijacked by Iranian-linked terrorists in 1985, an Iranian professor was gunned down in Switzerland in 1990, and an opposition activist was taken out in Italy in 1993.
Fears have been ratcheting up over Iran-linked plots in more recent times across Europe.
Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, France and the UK have all played host to various plots from 2018.
In May this year, Israel‘s spy agency claimed in a rare statement that Iran is increasing its support of groups including Foxtrot, which has been linked to murders and large-scale drug trafficking.
The Mossad agency alleged that Iran is behind a spate of terror attacks on Israeli embassies seen in Europe since October 7.
It claimed the country is currently funding and directing at least two criminal groups, namely Foxtrot and Rumba – both of which have been “directly responsible for a violent activity and the promotion of terrorism in Sweden and throughout Europe”.
German cops believe Iran recruited a fugitive Hells Angels boss to help organise terror attacks on synagogues.
Authorities found biker boss Ramin Yektaparast a key suspect in their investigations, to have deep ties with Tehran.
Yektaparast, who is wanted by German police for carrying out a brutal gangland murder, fled to Tehran in 2021.
Authorities believe he was tasked by the Revolutionary Guard to organise attacks in Germany.
Yektaparast has been living in Tehran since at least September 2021 but has insisted he is on vacation rather than living in exile, The Telegraph reports.
An Instagram account appearing to belong to Ramin Yektaparast shows a strongly built man in his mid-thirties riding motorbikes and driving Lamborghini sports cars – a classic trait of Hells Angels’ members.
The regime in Tehran appeared to have assisted Mr Yektaparast when he fled from Germany to Iran to avoid arrest
Another terror network targeting Jewish people and Israelis across Europe is reportedly being driven by Iran.
The organised crime cell is made up of gangsters and criminals believed to have been recruited to spy and carry out attacks, with European intelligence agencies scrambling to thwart them.
According to German news outlet Der Spiegel, the crooks have been coming after Jewish institutions across France and Germany on behalf of Iran.
They are reportedly responsible for four arson attacks on Israeli-owned companies in France‘s south in early 2024 and had plans to inflict more terror.
Cops pounced on one of the suspects accused of spying on a lawyer with Israeli clients in Berlin and an Israeli family in Munich.
It sparked fears that they may have been assassination targets.
The suspect had a history of gang violence, Der Spiegel reports.
He is said to have been known to cops in connection to a gang shootout in Marseille back in 2015.
Now it appears as though he was recruited by Tehran to incite fear into Jews in Germany and France, according to explosive documents leaked and seen by the media outlet.
Iran-fuelled hit squads on the streets of the UK have been linked to at least 15 threats to kill or kidnap detected by authorities.
They are all part of a campaign of intimidation aimed at those who speak out against the hardline regime.
The MI5 has accused Tehran of more than a dozen assassination and kidnap plots in Britain against dissidents and media organisations in the past two years.
Officials have previously warned that the threat against Iranian critics living in the UK has ramped up drastically after the horror October 7 attacks.
And given the hostile situation in the Middle East, Iran could ramp up its secret terror activities in the UK, Europe and the US, experts fear.
In 2022, Major Gen Hossein Salami, the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC warned: “You’ve tried us before. Watch out because we’re coming for you.”
Earlier this year, Iranian TV journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed outside his home in London, sparking an investigation led by counter-terrorism police.
The suspects were believed to be proxy agents hired by Tehran.
Mr Zeraati works for Iran International, a London-based Persian-speaking channel which has reported on Iran’s human rights violations.
He said a man approached him and asked for £3 before another man appeared and stabbed him in the leg.
The two fled in a car being driven by a third man, leaving Mr Zeraati bleeding in the street.
Investigators believed the three culprits were able to flee the country on a flight from Heathrow within hours of the attack.
Mr Zeraati, whose organisation has been a vocal critic of Iran, said the attack was a “warning shot” from Tehran.
He called on the UK government to declare the IRGC a terrorist group to stop it from spreading its doctrine.
He said: “It will also send a clear message to the regime in Iran that enough is enough.
“The whole of Western civilisation is in danger because of the threat the IRGC poses.”
A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found almost half of journalists who covered Iran from the UK reported being physically or verbally harassed in the past five years.
Individuals have been sent death threats by text and voice notes, with one message noting that the “water underneath Westminster Bridge was very deep”.
One said they were constantly worried about Iran targeting their children, saying: “I wake up in the middle of the night. I check my son to see if he’s there. I won’t let him play in the garden on his own. I have to be there. I’m on alert constantly.”
Another reporter told the RSF she had a package, which was designed to look like it contained anthrax, hand-delivered to her apartment block.
While female TV journalist was approached on a London bus by a man who told her: “We will kill you. You are a very bad person.”
All of them are understood to have voiced their dissent against Tehran.
EXCLUSIVE by Sayan Bose, Foreign News Reporter
It all comes amid the backdrop of escalating tensions in the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Iran has been deemed the biggest state sponsor of terrorism and the regime’s ruthless terror-waging wing, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has been accused of carrying out global terrorist attacks.
For decades, the country has fostered terrorism and supported conflict in the region through its proxy war groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
A bombshell report seen by The Sun claims Iran’s warped terrorist army trained up hundreds of Houthi recruits.
The report, by the National Committee of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), appears to reveal a secret base within an Iranian naval academy.
According to the information, the naval units of the proxy group are trained at The Khamenei Academy of Naval Sciences and Technology in Ziba Kenar on the Caspian coastline in Gilan Province.
Used as early as 2020 to train hundreds of recruits with IRGC support, the report could serve as smoking gun evidence proving the widely known link between the Iranian military and Houthi terrorists.
And it means the IRGC may have equipped the same Houthi terrorists with naval warfare techniques who are ambushing Israeli, American and British ships in the Red Sea four years on.
One section of the compound is dedicated to the six-month training course of foreign mercenaries affiliated with the Quds Force.
In January 2020, a special training program was launched for about 200 Houthis inside the campus.
Their housing was separate from other students, who were barred from interacting with them to prevent intelligence leaks.
Hossein Abedini, Deputy Representative Of NCRI In the UK told The Sun: “The IRGC Quds Force has been engaged in training, financing, and providing weapons, and logistics to Houthis and other proxy groups throughout the region for the past decades.
“It has established specific headquarters for various trainings of its proxy forces, including the naval forces.
“Veteran Quds Force officers have trained them, and the most senior Quds Force commanders have been commanding the training and the process.”
Former US ambassador Mark Wallace told The Sun that Iran’s murderous regime poses the greatest threat to the world order.
He said obtaining a nuclear weapon is just one strand in Tehran’s global campaign to reign terror and “the UK is firmly in its sights”.
