Iran Subcontracts Killing of Dissidents to European Criminals

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The police-state of Iran has for years been killing, or trying to kill, Iranian dissidents abroad, just as it does to dissidents within the country. It even kills non-Iranians abroad who are too vocal in their support of the dissidents. Iran has taken to outsourcing its killing to non-Iranian criminals in Europe. More on this effort can be found here: “Iranian Cosa Nostra: License to Kill,” Giulio Meotti, July 2, 2025:

“Iran wants to annihilate Israel, nothing new,” declared former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell in 2019, when he was still Spanish Foreign Minister. “We have to live with it.”

Now we must live with the fact that Iran is trying to kill parliamentarians, officials, and journalists.

Really? Other than providing extra security for those the Iranians have threatened or tried to kill, could not the Europeans cut diplomatic ties with the Islamic Republic, to deliver the firm message that the threats and attacks by Iran against dissidents living in Europe will not be tolerated?

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, 80, was a non-Iranian in Spain who was targeted by the Iranian regime because of his support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a dissident group of Iranians abroad. The bullet fired at his head instead hit him in the jaw, and he survived.

The Iranians don’t have sufficient trained personnel in Europe, apparently, to carry out all the killings of their enemies they deem necessary, so they have been hiring local criminals — members of “mafia organizations” — to do some of the killing for them.

The pusillanimity of the Spanish government in not making a formal complaint to Tehran and, in fact, not saying a word at this attempt to kill a distinguished Spanish politicians and former member of the European Parliament is disheartening. Do the Spanish think that by remaining silent, they will stop Iran from its campaign to kill its enemies on Spanish soil? Or that if they were to complain, that would only strengthen the determination of Tehran to kill its enemies inside Spain? Instead, the Spanish government should demand that Iran hand over the would-be killer of Vidal-Quadras if he is in Iran, or provide information as to his likely whereabouts if he is not.

The Iranian newspaper Kayhan recently called for the arrest, trial and execution of the International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi.

Kayhan is the semi-official paper of Iran’s rulers. The threat it published against Rafael Grossi can be considered as expressing the official view of those rulers. It’s designed to scare Grossi from returning to Iran, and it appears to have worked. He has dropped his demand to be allowed back into Iran with his group to investigate the country’s nuclear program and, especially, the extent of the damage at the three uranium enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan that were struck by the Americans. Iran has now announced that it is discontinuing all cooperation with IAEA. Will the UN — with which the IAEA works closely — demand that Iran recommit to allowing the IAEA investigators, headed by Grossi, into Iran to investigate its nuclear sites, with special attention to the three sites struck by the Americans?

Meanwhile, a fatwa has now been issued, calling for U.S. President Donald Trump to be killed for threatening the life of the Supreme Leader, which, according to the Ayatollah Shirazi, who issued the fatwa, is equivalent to“waging war against Allah.” Actually, Trump did not threaten to kill the Supreme Leader. He said that he “could” have done if he had wanted to, because he knew where Ayatollah Khamenei was hiding, but had no intention of doing so.

Amid all this, Iran has been preparing attacks in Europe not just on Iranian dissidents, but on Jewish targets — synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish-owned businesses, Jewish communal leaders — not because the Jews in Europe pose any kind of threat to Iran, but only because they are Jews, and thus the “strongest in enmity” to the Muslims.

Among the targets Iran hires mercenaries to gather information on for a possible future assassination attempt are European politicians who have been noticeably pro-Israel in their views. Thus the Iranians paid a Pakistani to get the information on Reinhold Robbe, not because he had made any statements about Iran, but only because he had once been the head of the German-Israeli Society. He was, in other words, too friendly toward the state and people of Israel, and for this he deserved to be punished.