Swedish security chiefs: Iran recruits gangs to hit Israeli targets in Sweden

From the Swedish edition of The Local, the Sun and the Jerusalem Post

Iran uses Swedish criminal gangs to carry out attacks on other states’ interests in Sweden, Swedish security service SAPO said.

Swedish newspaper dn and several Israeli media were first to publish the claims on Thursday, citing Israeli security police Mossad.

In January, a hand grenade was thrown at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. According to Mossad, Swedish gang leader Rawa Majid’s network carried out the attack on Iran’s orders, DN wrote.

SAPO confirmed in a press statement on Thursday that they, too, had “established that the Iranian regime uses criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts against other states, groups, or individuals in Sweden that Iran regards as threats”.

“the security-threatening activities of the Iranian regime and its security services have also targeted representatives of other states, including Israel, that Iran regards as enemies of its regime. Such activities could be carried out with a view to harming Israeli and Jewish interests, targets, and activities in Sweden,” it said.

It said it had thwarted several attacks linked to the Iranian security services in recent years.

“Some of these attacks have used criminal networks as proxies,” it said.

Iran can also be tied to several other criminal networks in Europe, according to the reports. DN wrote that Mossad also claims that foxtrot’s rival gang, Rumba, which is led by Majid’s former right-hand man Ismail Abdo, collaborates with Iran.

Israel alleged that gang Rumba, headed by Ismail Abdo, was behind the gunshots near Israel’s embassy in Sweden.

Daniel Stenling, the head of Säpo counterintelligence, said there was a significant risk Iran will strike again in Sweden.

Iran is reportedly ramping up support of terror in Europe ahead of the Paris Olympics

Israel’s spy agency charged that Iran was behind the grenade attack against Israel’s Embassy in Belgium

Iran’s global terror plans go back long before the current war. In September 2023, Mossad Director David Barnea said that his agency and other intelligence agencies in Israel and among foreign allies thwarted 27 Iranian terror plots that year against Israelis all over the world on almost every continent. Barnea showed videos from Iranian terror agents that the Mossad captured and interrogated in Tanzania and Cyprus.  He listed off the countries of Tanzania; Georgie, Cyprus, Greece, and Germany as just a few examples, naming Yousef Shahbazi Abbasalilo as an Iranian operative in the terror operation in Cyprus and Hamidreza Abraheh as an Iranian operative in the terror operation in Tanzania.