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Iran's terror-cell embassies exposed
By
Struan Stevenson, Campaign for Iran Change
Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Albania's decision to expel the Iranian
ambassador and another diplomat for plotting acts of terrorism within the
country has been widely praised. President Trump has written personally to
Prime Minister Edi Rama congratulating him for countering Iran's
"destabilizing activities and efforts to silence dissidents around the
globe." His letter was reinforced by messages of support from U.S.
national security adviser John
Bolton and Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo. The expulsion has focused world attention once again on how the
mullahs' regime uses its embassies as terror cells.
The Iranian regime was outraged when Albania courageously
agreed to rescue over 2,500 Iranian refugees from the camps where they had been
incarcerated and abused in Iraq. They had been under constant military assault
and rocket attacks. The defenseless refugees are members of the main Iranian
democratic opposition movement, the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The
Islamic Republic of Iran had ordered the puppet government in Iraq to
annihilate these dissident Iranians and 168 had been murdered and over 1,700
wounded, some severely, by the time the Albanians agreed to offer the survivors
a safe haven in Tirana. The first airlifts began in 2013 and by 2016 all 2,500
refugees had arrived in Albania.
The mullahs were appalled at the airlift and the fact that
the Iranian dissidents had escaped to safety. Their attempts to liquidate the
MEK had been thwarted. They could not allow these political opponents, who
offer a democratic future of freedom and justice to the oppressed millions in
Iran, to set up a new home in Albania. The regime turned its full focus on
Albania. The formerly tiny Iranian embassy in Albania was transformed into one
of the regime's largest embassies in the Balkans. In early 2016, as the MEK
members were being flown to Albania in groups, Tehran sent a new ambassador,
Gholam Hossein Mohammadinia, to Albania. Mohammadinia is a former high-ranking
Iranian intelligence official and was also a member of the Iranian nuclear
negotiating team before accepting the appointment in Albania. His main mandate
in Tirana was to implement the regime's terrorist plots against the MEK. He is
the person who has now been exposed as a terrorist and expelled by Albania's
Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Under Mohammadinia's guidance, in March 2018, the Iranian
Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) plotted to detonate a bomb at a Nowruz (Iranian
New Year) gathering of MEK members in Tirana. Luckily this attempted atrocity
was uncovered and foiled at the last minute and was subsequently revealed by
Prime Minister Edi Rama on April 19th, 2018. Two MOIS agents were expelled as a
result of this failed terror bid.
Nevertheless, the Iranian embassy in Tirana has become the
focus of an expanding nest of 25 intelligence agents and spies, including
Mostafa Roodaki, another senior intelligence official who was brought in as
First Secretary. He is the person who was previously the head of the Iranian
regime's intelligence station in Austria and had been coordinating activities against
the PMOI in Europe. Although the name of the second diplomat expelled from
Albania has not yet been disclosed, it is most likely to be this very senior
and sinister terror expert.
Roodaki was replaced in Austria by Assadullah Assadi, another
'so-called' diplomat, who was arrested in Germany in July 2018 after he had
delivered a 50 gm bomb to two Iranian agents and instructed them to detonate it
at a large gathering of Iranians in Paris. Assadi was extradited to Belgium and
is now awaiting trial on terrorism charges. In October 2018, the regime sent
another senior intelligence agent -- Mohammad Davoudzadeh Lului -- with close
ties to the Iranian embassy and its ambassador in Norway, to assassinate an
opposition figure in Denmark. He too now awaits trial on terrorism charges.
Also, in 2018 two 'so-called' Iranian diplomats were expelled from the
Netherlands for acts of terror.
Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama has shown the world that
his country will not be bullied by the tyrants from Tehran. He bravely stepped
up to the plate by rescuing the Iranian refugees from almost certain death in
Iraq, when no other EU country was prepared to help, frightened that by doing
so they could lose lucrative contracts with the Iranian mullahs. Once again Edi
Rama has shown Europe the way to deal with the Iranian thugs and terrorists.
The EU should follow suit and close down Iran's terror-cell embassies.
Struan Stevenson is the Coordinator of the Campaign for Iran
Change (CiC). He was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland
(1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq
(2009-14) and chairman of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an
international lecturer on the Middle East and is also president of the European
Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA)
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