Israel revealed on Thursday that the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, provided essential information to Germany, France and Belgium which allowed them to thwart an Iranian bombing at a gathering of a dissident group in France. Twenty-five thousand people attended the rally in Villepinte, north of Paris, on June 30. The rally was organized by the People’s Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile organization that advocates the violent overthrow of the Tehran regime. Also present were leading US figures including Rudolph Giuliani, President Trump’s attorney and former mayor of New York City.
According to this week’s report, the Mossad intelligence led to the arrest of six people including an Iranian diplomat who headed the terrorist cell, and a husband and wife who are Belgian nationals of Iranian origin. The couple was arrested with 500 grams of the homemade explosive TATP and a detonation device in their car.
The arrests came just a few days before Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif met with European leaders in an attempt to salvage the 2015 agreement concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran labelled the accusations of a plot as a “false flag ploy” staged by the MEK intended to discredit Zarif and sidetrack the efforts to save the nuclear deal.
Iranian diplomat arrested in Germany over terror plot: Allegedly instructed an Iranian couple from Belgium to bomb MEK rally. https://t.co/VC3EckhIgb
— Björn Stritzel (@bjoernstritzel) July 2, 2018
