Mossad helps foil Iranian assassination plot in Denmark

The Israeli intelligence agency provided key information to its Danish counterpart to save Iranian dissidents from being murdered by Iranian government agents.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israel’s Mossad helped Danish security foil an Iranian-backed attempt to assassinate members of an Iranian dissident group who had found asylum in the Nordic country, it was reported Wednesday.

A senior Israeli official said that the Mossad had provided the Danes with key information that led to the arrest ten days ago of a Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent in the Swedish city of Goteborg on suspicion of plotting to assassinate the leader of the Danish branch of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA).

Two other suspected members of the group who lived in Denmark were also reportedly targeted by the Iranian-backed cell.

The ASMLA is an Arab nationalist insurgent group that advocates a separate Arab ethnic state in Khuzestan Province in Persian-dominated Iran. It is classified as a terrorist group by the Iranian government, which blames it for killing 25  during a military parade in the city of Ahvaz in late September, including soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

On Tuesday, Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said, “We are dealing with an Iranian intelligence agency planning an attack on Danish soil. Obviously, we can’t and won’t accept that.”

Copenhagen’s immediate steps include calling for new European Union sanctions against the Islamic Republic, as well as recalling its ambassador “for consultations.”

British premier Theresa May quickly voiced support for Denmark’s position during a meeting in Oslo of northern European leaders, and Danish leader Lars Lokke Rasmussen tweeted his appreciation, adding his determination to “stand up to Iran” together with the U.K, and other countries.

Those countries might go beyond the EU as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated Denmark on its moves and called for its “allies and partners to confront the full range of Iran’s threats to peace and security.”