Ready-made accusations and kidnapping squads: Iran's tools to besiege foreign opponents

Iranian opposition movements abroad have caused great concern to the Iranian regime, especially in light of these movements organizing continuous activities to expose the defects and negatives of the mullah regime, and Tehran is trying to address through assassinations and kidnappings of members of these movements, which have become a chronic headache for the regime. The recent period has witnessed an escalation in the assassinations of opposition figures abroad, in addition to the kidnappings of activists in recent years.

Accusations of espionage

After the Ahvazi leader Habib Farajollah Kaab, known as Habib Asyoud, was kidnapped from Turkish territory after being lured there and returned to the Iranian interior, trials were held against him, during which a number of accusations were brought against him that were echoed by the Iranian media. The fourth session was held in the trial of Asyoud, the leader of the Arab Struggle for the Liberation of Ahvaz, in Iran on charges including relations with Israel and the CIA.

Fars News Agency quoted the public prosecutor in the court as saying that Asyoud admitted his relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) since 2009, and that he met two members of the CIA. Fars also quoted the prosecutor as saying that Asyoud admitted that he had relations and talks with Israel through a mediator who arranged all his relations with the country.

Sowing corruption on earth

“Sowing corruption on Earth” is a ready-made accusation for opponents of the Iranian regime. A few days after Asyoud’s trial, the trial of the kidnapped German citizen and head of the opposition Tondar organization, Jamshid Sharmahd, began on charges of sowing corruption on earth. Sharmahd was kidnapped in the summer of 2020 during a trip to the Middle East in mysterious circumstances. Tondar is also the name of the media branch of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran, which has its headquarters in Los Angeles, California, and which the Iranian government describes as a terrorist group.

According to the indictment against Sharmahd, which was filed by the Public Prosecution Office, he allegedly confessed to attempting to blow up the Sivand Dam in Shiraz in southern Iran, planning to assassinate the director of the dam project and to bomb the mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini (the founder of the regime) in 2009, and preparing a bomb to blow up the religious seminary Ayatollah Golpayegani.

Kidnapping squads

The Iranian regime's attempts to besiege dissidents abroad expanded, as Turkish intelligence and security forces announced the arrest of 14 suspects for cooperating with Iranian intelligence to implement plans to kidnap Iranian dissidents on Turkish soil.

Anadolu Agency quoted Turkish security sources as saying that the owner of the Bay Saglam Defense Industries, Ehsan Saglam, and the Iranian citizen who works for him, Morteza Soltan Sanjari, were planning to kidnap Iranian dissidents in Turkey.

According to Anadolu, Saglam and Sanjari received instructions from Seyed Mehdi Hosseini and Ali QahramaniHajiabad, who work for the Iranian intelligence. Saglam and his team received $150,000 intermittently in exchange for kidnapping Iranian dissidents, and Iranian intelligence officials pledged to pay for other figures planned to be kidnapped.

The revelation of the Iranian cell raises questions about its involvement in the kidnapping of Habib Asyoud, as the Washington Post quoted a Turkish official on January 13, 2020, as saying that Iran had kidnapped him when he traveled from Sweden to Istanbul on October 9, 2020, to meet a woman who lured him, and he was drugged and kidnapped when he went to see her.

Turkey witnessed other crimes against Iranian opponents in Istanbul, most notably the assassination of Iranian activist and opponent Masoud Molavi in 2019 while he was in Istanbul. He received 11 bullets that killed him, and at that time, recordings spread from Turkish media that were said to be related to the killing of Molavi by Iranian intelligence in the center of Istanbul.