Stabbing of Iran International journalist in London bears the hallmarks of a secret army black-ops program

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Stabbed outside his home in Wimbledon on March 29, Pouria Zeraati later released a photograph of himself in hospital, vowing to be back on air soon. Back on the airwaves, he said “the show must go on.” (Supplied)
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Updated 07 April 2024
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Stabbing of Iran International journalist in London bears the hallmarks of a secret army black-ops program

  • Pouria Zeraati assault suggests IRGC operatives undaunted in their determination to intimidate overseas dissidents
  • Some hosts of the Persian-language TV channel not only face social-media abuse but also risk to their lives

LONDON: On Nov. 16, 2022, armed police descended in force on a West London business park, home to leading international brands such as Starbucks and Danone and a sprinkling of media companies, among them CBS, Paramount and the Discovery channel.

To the shock of the thousands of people who work in the dozen modern buildings, clustered around landscaped gardens featuring lakes, a waterfall, cafes and a boardwalk, security barriers were thrown up at every vehicle entrance, pedestrians entering the site were obliged to pass through body scanners and the colorful food trucks on the campus were joined by a fleet of black police armored cars.




Iran International, a Persian-language TV in London, has been categorized by Tehran as a “terrorist” organization. (Supplied)

One building in particular, home to Persian-language satellite TV channel Iran International, came in for special attention. Security fencing and concrete “Hostile Vehicle Mitigation” blocks were installed around it and armed police and dog handlers patrolled the perimeter.

Earlier that month, Volant Media, which owns the channel, had revealed that two of its British Iranian journalists had been warned by police that there was “an imminent, credible and significant risk to their lives and those of their families.”

Its journalists were accustomed to receiving abuse on social media, a spokesman said, but the threats marked “a significant and dangerous escalation of a state-sponsored campaign to intimidate Iranian journalists working abroad.”




“Wanted dead or alive” posters against Pouria Zeraati, Sima Sabet, Niusha Saremi and Truske Sadeghi published by the IRGC-backed Fars News Agency seen on the streets of Tehran. (Supplied)

Two months earlier, Esmail Khatib, Iran’s intelligence minister, had said Iran International had been categorized by Tehran as a “terrorist” organization and that its “agents” would be pursued.

Sanctions were also announced against the channel and BBC News Persian, both accused of inciting riots and supporting terrorism with their coverage of protests in Iran, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested in Tehran for violating Iran’s hijab laws.

On the same day that armed police locked down Chiswick Business Park, Ken McCallum, director-general of the UK’s domestic security service, MI5, said Iran “projects threat to the UK directly, through its aggressive intelligence services.

“At its sharpest this includes ambitions to kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.”




Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Hossein Salami speaking during a military drill near the island of Abu Musa, off the coast of the southern Iranian city of Bandar Lengeh. (IRGC handout via Sepah News/AFP)

Only the previous week, he added, the British foreign secretary had “made clear to the Iranian regime that the UK will not tolerate intimidation or threats to life towards journalists, or any individual, living in the UK.”

But the news that one of Iran International’s London-based journalists had been attacked by a group of men and stabbed outside his home in Wimbledon, in south London, on March 29 showed that the regime remains undaunted in its determination to intimidate dissidents wherever they are in the world.

Pouria Zeraati survived the attack, which left him wounded in the leg — he later released a photograph of himself in hospital, smiling defiantly and vowing to be back on air soon. Back on the airwaves, he said “the show must go on.”




Pouria Zeraati, center, with leading British IRGC specialist Kasra Aarabi, left, and political commentator Al Hossein Ghazizade. (Supplied)

The attack is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, which says his attackers drove straight to Heathrow Airport and fled the country. Their destination has not been revealed.

The “siege” of Chiswick Business Park, as it became known locally, continued until February 2023, when Iran International announced it was “reluctantly and temporarily” closing its London studios and moving to Washington, D.C.

The last straw for the company was the arrest on Feb. 11, 2023, of an Austrian national, who was caught red-handed by security staff while carrying out “hostile reconnaissance” outside its offices.

Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev was swiftly arrested by armed anti-terrorist police in a cafe at the business park.

He was charged with terrorism offenses and at his trial at the Old Bailey in December 2023 was found guilty of attempting to collect information “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."




Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, a Chechnya-born Austrian national, was convicted in Britain of spying for a group suspected of planning an attack on an independent Iranian TV station in London. He was sentenced to jail for three-and-a-half years. (Metropolitan Police photo / AFP)

During the trial it was revealed that the Chechen individual had taken a minicab directly to the business park after flying to Gatwick Airport from Vienna. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

The reality, said an Iranian activist living in London speaking on condition of anonymity, “is that Iranian dissidents living in exile know they are increasingly at risk from a regime that has shown it can and will reach out to intimidate, threaten and even kill anyone, anywhere, any time.

“It is also clear that it has no qualms about using foreign and domestic criminals as its weapons of choice.”

The depths to which Iranian operatives are prepared to sink in order to silence critics became clear in January this year, when the US and the UK jointly imposed sanctions on a network of “individuals that targeted Iranian dissidents and opposition activists for assassination ... at the behest of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).”

According to the US Treasury, the network was led by “Iranian narcotics trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi Zindashti and operates at the behest of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.”

Zindashti’s gang was responsible for “numerous acts of transnational repression including assassinations and kidnappings across multiple jurisdictions in an attempt to silence the Iranian regime’s perceived critics.”

 

 

In a statement, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said that the MOIS and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “have long targeted perceived regime opponents in acts of transnational repression outside of Iran, a practice that the regime has accelerated in recent years.

“A wide range of dissidents, journalists, activists and former Iranian officials have been targeted for assassination, kidnapping and hacking operations across numerous countries in the Middle East, Europe and North America.”

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The scale of the IRGC’s black-ops program in one country alone was hinted at in February last year when Assistant Commissioner Matt Jukes, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism unit, said that police and MI5 had foiled “15 plots since the start of 2022 to either kidnap or even kill British or UK-based individuals perceived as enemies of the regime.”

Only occasionally do such plots make the headlines.

The US believes that IRGC agents engineered the assassination in The Netherlands of Ahmad Molla Nissi, a 52-year-old activist who campaigned for independence for Iran’s Ahwazi Arabs. Nissi was shot dead outside his home in The Hague in November 2017.




Ahmad Molla Nissi, founder of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, was shot dead outside his home in The Netherlands in November 2017. (X: @ahwazona1999)

In October 2019 Ruhollah Zam, a journalist living under political asylum in France who ran a popular anti-government website, was kidnapped during a visit to Iraq. After being taken to Iran, he was tortured, subjected to a sham trial and then hanged on Dec. 12, 2020.

In July 2020 Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian German activist, was kidnapped while traveling abroad and forcibly brought to Iran, where he has been sentenced to death.

 




German-Iranian political dissident Jamshid Sharmahd. (Amnesty International photo)

According to US Treasury, Tehran “increasingly relies on organized criminal groups in furtherance of these plots in an attempt to obscure links to the Government of Iran and maintain plausible deniability.”

Zindashti, who was sanctioned by the US in January and is believed to be in Iran, is wanted by the FBI “for his alleged involvement in criminal activities including the attempted murder-for-hire of two residents of the state of Maryland.”

His Iran-based criminal network, says the FBI, “allegedly used encrypted, internet-based messaging applications to hire criminal elements within North America to murder two individuals who fled Iran” and “allegedly provided resources to facilitate the attempted transnational killing of a person within the United States.”

On Dec. 13 2023, a federal arrest warrant was issued for Zindashti after he was charged with “Conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire” — US legal longhand for hiring a hitman.

According to the FBI, Zindashti was born in Urmia, a city in Iran’s northwest, close to the borders of Iraq and Turkiye. He weighs approximately 113 kg, is 190 cm tall and speaks several languages, including English, Farsi and Turkish.

The Iranians’ predilection for collaborating with underworld characters has led to some strange alliances. Alongside Zindashti, in January the US Justice Department indicted two Canadian nationals as alleged accomplices in his murder-for-hire plot to kill two US residents in Maryland.

 

 

Damion Patrick John Ryan, 43, and Adam Richard Pearson, 29, are members of a chapter of the motorcycle gang Hells Angels. Both are imprisoned in Canada on unrelated offenses.

The US Justice Department released details of the deal between Zindashti and the two men, who communicated through Sky ECC, an encrypted messaging network that has since been shut down by authorities in the US and Europe.

A fee of $350,000, plus $20,000 in expenses, was agreed for the killing of two targets, a man and a woman. Photographs of the intended victims were exchanged, along with their address and a map showing their location.

Discussing the plot regularly between December 2020 and January 2021, Ryan told Zindashti that having someone killed in the US was challenging, but that he “might have someone to do it.” That same day he messaged Pearson about a “job” in Maryland.

Pearson replied to say he was “on it” and that “shooting is probably easiest thing for them.” He would tell the gunmen he planned to recruit to “shoot (the victim) in the head a lot (to) make example,” adding “We gotta erase his head from his torso.” A “four-man team” would carry out the killings.

Immediately after the attack on Zeraati in London, a former journalist with Iran International said she had been told by the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Unit “to immediately leave my residence and stay elsewhere until further notice.”




British Iranian journalist Sima Sabet. (X: @Sima_Sabet)
 

Writing on X, Sima Sabet revealed that last year she and her colleague Fardad Farahzad, who is now based in Washington, had been the targets of an assassination attempt orchestrated by the IRGC.

She said the plot was foiled by a “Western security service,” which had obtained “audio and video files in which a Quds Force commander ordered an individual to kill me and Farahzad with a knife.”




Esmail Qaani, commander of Iran's dreaded Quds Force, speaks in Tehran during a commemoration ceremony marking the anniversary of the 2020 killing of IRGCV general Qasem Soleimani (on screen) on January 3, 2024. (AFP/File)

According to Sabet, the attack on Zeraati was “a serious warning and an extremely troubling act for all journalists and opponents of the Islamic Republic in Britain and other Western countries.”

Mehdi Hosseini Matin, Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK, has said “we deny any link” to the attack.
 

 


Palestinian detainee says he was tortured in Israeli detention center

Updated 11 sec ago
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Palestinian detainee says he was tortured in Israeli detention center

KHAN YOUNIS: Palestinian medic and ambulance worker Tarek Rabie Safi, freed from an Israeli jail as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, said he was underfed and abused during almost a year in captivity.
Safi, a 39-year-old father of two, was released along with 368 other Palestinian detainees on Saturday, after Hamas freed three Israeli hostages from Gaza.
Palestinian prisoners and Israeli hostages have both complained of harsh treatment in the hands of their captors.
“I was held by the Israeli army in the Gaza ‘envelop’, which is Sde Teiman where I stayed for four months (and I was subjected to) torture of our bodies (physical torture) and hunger,” a gaunt-looking Safi said.
“(There was) no (decent) food, or drinks, or (medical) treatment. My arm was broken, and they did not treat me, and they did not get me checked by a doctor.”
The Israeli military rejected the claims in an emailed response to Reuters’ queries, saying detainees are given food and drink regularly and have access to medical care, and that if necessary, they are transferred to a medical facility with advanced capabilities.
Safi, who was detained in March last year near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said a detainee who was in the same room with him had died as a result of his treatment.
“A young man who was with me was martyred, Mussab Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him, in the same room. This young man was strong, but due to the lack of food, lack of drinks and frequent torture, he was martyred in front of our eyes,” Safi said.
After four months in the detention center, Safi was moved to other Israeli jails until his release in Khan Younis, where he was reunited with his family in emotional scenes.
The Israeli military said it is aware of incidents of detainee deaths, but cannot comment since investigations are pending.
The Palestinian Prisoner Association, which documents Israeli detentions of Palestinians, said that Israel is carrying out “systematic crimes and revenge attacks” against prisoners, most recently in the Israeli-occupied West Bank’s Ofer prison.
Abdullah Al-Zaghari, head of the association, said that the group had documented horrific testimonies, including severe beatings and shackling prisoners for days and weeks without food or water.
Reuters is unable to independently confirm the reports.
Human rights group Amnesty International said last year that 27 released detainees it had interviewed consistently described being subjected to torture on at least one occasion during their arrest.

Israel will leave troops in 5 locations in Lebanon after Tuesday deadline, military spokesperson says

Israeli army forces patrol in the village of Kfarshuba in southern Lebanon on February 17, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 25 min 36 sec ago
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Israel will leave troops in 5 locations in Lebanon after Tuesday deadline, military spokesperson says

  • “We need to remain at those points at the moment to defend Israeli citizens, to make sure this process is complete,” military spokesperson said
  • Lebanon’s President Aoun said Monday he was “afraid that the complete withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow”

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel will keep troops in several posts in southern Lebanon past a February 18 deadline for them to withdraw, a military spokesperson said on Monday, as Israeli leaders sought to reassure northern residents that they can return home safely.
Under a truce deal brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah since early October.
That deadline was extended to February 18, but Israeli and Lebanese officials as well as foreign diplomats had anticipated that the military would retain some troops on parts of the Lebanese side of the border.
“We need to remain at those points at the moment to defend Israeli citizens, to make sure this process is complete and eventually hand it over to the Lebanese armed forces,” military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told a briefing with reporters, adding that the move was in accordance with the mechanism of the ceasefire agreement.
He said the locations were close to Israeli communities or occupying strategic vantage points overlooking Israeli towns like Metula, at the northernmost point of Israel.
“Basically the security situation is very, very complex,” he said.
A Lebanese official and two foreign diplomats said Israeli troops would likely leave villages in south Lebanon but stay in overlook points to reassure residents of northern Israel who are set to return home on March 1.
Tens of thousands of people were displaced from northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket fire and more than a million people in Lebanon fled Israeli air strikes in the year-long war conflict playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting ended in late November with a truce ordering Israeli troops to withdraw from south Lebanon, Hezbollah fighters and arms to leave and Lebanese troops to deploy.
The ceasefire deal stipulates that only “official military and security forces” in Lebanon can carry arms and that the Lebanese government must prevent any transfers of arms or related material to non-state armed groups.
Its language — sharper than previous United Nations Security Council Resolutions — appears to spells out ways that the Lebanese state will be expected to constrain Hezbollah, diplomats and analysts said.
The deal’s implementation is being overseen by a committee chaired by the US and France.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, who has said Israeli troops should leave by the February 18 deadline, said on Monday he was “afraid that the complete (Israeli) withdrawal will not be achieved tomorrow.”
The two diplomats said talks were still underway on alternatives to Israeli troops staying, including possibly deploying more UN peacekeepers to the border.
France has proposed that UN forces including French troops replace Israeli forces at key border points.
Hezbollah said on Sunday that Israeli forces still in Lebanon after Tuesday would be considered an occupying force.
Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 22 years, withdrawing in 2000 after continued attacks on its positions in occupied Lebanese territory by Hezbollah, founded in 1982 to counter Israel’s invasions.
In the latest war, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire for nearly a year, mostly around the border. Israel significantly escalated in September, eliminating much of Hezbollah’s top leadership in air strikes and sending ground troops into south Lebanon.


UN appeals for $6 billion for Sudan crisis aid in 2025

Updated 17 February 2025
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UN appeals for $6 billion for Sudan crisis aid in 2025

  • The aim is to provide assistance to nearly 26 million people this year, UN bodies say
  • Civil war has displaced 12 million people, of whom around 3.5 million have fled the country

GENEVA: The UN appealed Monday for $6 billion to provide desperately-needed aid to people in war-ravaged Sudan and millions of refugees fleeing “appalling” conditions.
The aim is to provide assistance to nearly 26 million people this year, the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA and refugee agency UNHCR said in a joint appeal.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The UN agencies said the civil war has displaced 12 million people, of whom around 3.5 million have fled the country.
They stressed that at the same time, nearly two-thirds of Sudan’s population needs emergency aid, as swathes of the country face famine conditions.
“Sudan is a humanitarian emergency of shocking proportions,” UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement.
“Famine is taking hold. An epidemic of sexual violence rages. Children are being killed and injured. The suffering is appalling.”
Famine conditions have already been reported in at least five locations in Sudan, including in displacement camps in Darfur and in the western Nuba Mountains, the UN statement said.
And “catastrophic hunger is expected to worsen by May when the lean season begins,” it warned.
The UN said it was appealing for $4.2 billion to reach nearly 21 million people inside Sudan with life-saving aid and protection.
Fletcher said the UN plan would provide “a lifeline to millions.”
The United Nations said it would also need $1.8 billion to support 4.8 million people – both Sudanese refugees and their host communities – in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, South Sudan and Uganda.
“Today, one-third of Sudan’s entire population is displaced,” UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said in the statement, highlighting that “the consequences of this horrific and senseless conflict spread far beyond Sudan’s borders.”
The UN cautioned that without immediate funding, two-thirds of refugee children would be denied access to primary education, “threatening an entire generation.”
And “up to 4.8 million refugees and host community members will continue to face severe food insecurity, with at least 1.8 million going without food assistance,” it said, warning that “already strained health systems may collapse.”
Last year, humanitarian organizations received $1.8 billion for Sudan – 66 percent of the $2.7 billion requested – and managed to reach more than 15.6 million people across the country.
They also provided life-saving food assistance to over a million people in neighboring countries, as well as medical support to half a million and protection services to over 800,000, the statement said.


Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon

Civil defence workers and Lebanese soldiers gather next to remains of burned car that was hit by an Israeli drone strike.
Updated 55 min 39 sec ago
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Israel kills Hamas official in southern Lebanon

  • Israeli military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon
  • A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters

BEIRUT: Israel killed on Monday a Hamas leader in southern Lebanon’s Sidon area, the Israeli military and a Hamas official said.
The military said Muhammad Shaheen was the head of the operations department of Hamas in Lebanon and that he had recently been involved in promoting “terrorist plots” with Iranian direction and funding from Lebanese territory against Israeli citizens.
A Hamas official confirmed Shaheen’s killing to Reuters.
An Israeli strike on a car in Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon targeted an official in the Palestinian militant group, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters earlier.
Lebanon’s state news agency said rescuers had removed one body from the car but did not identify the victim.
The Israeli military has been carrying out strikes against members of Hamas, allied Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and other factions in Lebanon, in parallel with the war in Gaza.
Those armed groups have launched rockets, drones and artillery attacks across the border into northern Israel.
Under a truce brokered by Washington in November, Israeli troops were granted 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon where they had waged a ground offensive against fighters from Iran-backed Hezbollah since early October.
That deadline was later extended to February 18, but Israel’s military requested that it keep troops in five posts in southern Lebanon, sources told Reuters last week.


Cairo building collapse kills 10: state media

Updated 17 February 2025
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Cairo building collapse kills 10: state media

  • Eyewitnesses told the state-owned outlet that “a gas cylinder explosion” caused the collapse

CAIRO: A building collapse in the Egyptian capital killed 10 people and injured eight more on Monday, with several others believed to be missing under the rubble, state media reported.
Ambulances were dispatched to the scene in the working class neighborhood of Kerdasa, where civil defense teams searched for people thought to be missing under the rubble, according to the Al-Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper.
Eyewitnesses told the state-owned outlet that “a gas cylinder explosion” caused the collapse, and a police investigation was under way.
Building regulations are unevenly enforced in the sprawling metropolis of Cairo, home to over 26 million people.
The city has seen a number of deadly building collapses in recent years, both due to the dilapidated state of some and, at times, failure to comply with building regulations.