Israel, which last month held its first ever direct confrontation with Iran, claimed the Tehran regime was preparing to attack Europe.
Israeli warplanes, part of a continuing string of attacks on Iranian targets in Syria, destroyed a building in the embassy complex in Damascus on Monday, April 1. Commanders of the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, had been meeting in the five-story building, which was completely destroyed. The attack killed seven Iranian officers, including one of the Quds Force’s most important figures, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and his deputy, Brigadier General Mohammad Haj Rahimi.
Tehran then retaliated against Israel from its own territory for the first time, firing more than 300 missiles and kamikaze-armed unmanned aerial vehicles at it on the night of Saturday, April 13. Israel, with the support of the United States and other allies, blocked the Iranian missile and kamikaze drone airstrikes. A few days later, a military base in Isfahan, central Iran, was hit by Israeli missiles.
This could provoke a new crisis on the Tehran-Tel Aviv border, where tensions have been relatively de-escalating in recent weeks. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed on his social media accounts that Iran is planning a wave of attacks in Europe. Katz claimed that this large-scale wave of attacks would take place before the Paris Olympics in August.
The Israeli foreign minister described Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism” and wrote that “Khamenei must be stopped before it’s too late,” without providing any evidence for Khamenei’s claims.
Israel Katz also claimed that Iran was using criminal organisations to carry out “terrorist” activities in Sweden.
Katz’s comments follow a Swedish statement earlier this week that said Iran uses a number of criminal organisations.
The Stockholm administration issued a statement blaming Iran, two weeks after gunfire was heard outside the Israeli embassy, and the Swedish intelligence agency Sapo reported that Iran had activated its domestic criminal networks to carry out violent acts against other countries and individuals.
The covert war between arch-rivals Iran and Israel in the Middle East has been going on for decades. The Tehran regime has targeted Israel through proxy forces in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, while Tel Aviv has carried out hundreds of attacks in the past few years, particularly in war-torn Syria. Israel has also carried out several discreet assassinations on Iranian territory, including the killing of its chief nuclear physicist.
In other social media messages shared on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Katz described Iran as the “head of the snake.”
