Israel Exposes Iranian Terror Network as IRGC-Linked Cells Expand Attacks Across Europe

Israel has exposed a far-reaching Iranian-backed terrorist network targeting Israeli officials and overseas assets, as the Islamist regime intensifies a widening campaign of attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets across Europe through proxy groups.

On Monday, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency the Mossad, the Israel Defense Forces, and the country’s domestic security agency the Shin Bet released a joint statement confirming that authorities had uncovered and dismantled an Iranian-backed network after several of its members were arrested in Azerbaijan last month.

Following the onset of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s elite military force responsible for overseas terrorist operations and the coordination of proxy groups, has escalated efforts to establish cells abroad and carry out attacks, widening what officials describe as a sustained campaign of destabilization beyond the Middle East.

According to Israeli intelligence, members of the cell had smuggled explosive drones into Azerbaijan while gathering intelligence on potential targets under direct instructions from Iranian operatives as part of an organized effort to lay the groundwork for planned attacks.

With the arrest of the cell’s members, authorities were able to expose the broader terrorist network and its chain of command, including several senior operatives who were later killed during the US-Israeli campaign against Iran that began on Feb. 28.

Among those killed was Rahman Moqadam, head of the Special Operations Division within IRGC intelligence and the senior commander overseeing the network.

Moqadam allegedly recruited and trained operatives both inside and outside Iran to gather intelligence on Israeli political leaders, security officials, Israeli and Western military facilities, ports, and Israeli shipping routes worldwide.

Last month, Azerbaijan foiled a series of planned attacks linked to Iranian operatives on its territory, including plots targeting the Israeli embassy in Baku, a synagogue, and Jewish community leaders, as well as the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, which runs through Georgia and Turkey and supplies roughly a third of Israel’s oil imports.

Police arrested at least seven Azeri nationals in connection with the investigation.

At the time, government authorities said law enforcement “prevented terrorist acts and intelligence operations in Azerbaijan organized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).”

According to Israeli security officials, Mahdi Yekeh-Dehghan was identified as the network’s regional commander in Azerbaijan after Turkish authorities arrested six suspects, including an Iranian national, in January during coordinated raids across five provinces on charges of political and military espionage for Iran.

Yekeh-Dehghan is said to have directed the cell’s operations, including efforts to smuggle explosive drones from Iran through Turkey to Cyprus and to collect intelligence on US forces at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.

Since the start of the war, European governments have tightened domestic security amid mounting fears that Iran could, in retaliation, activate proxy networks across the continent against Israeli and Western interests.

But even with increased security and heightened intelligence monitoring, Europe has seen a string of attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli institutions, several of them claimed by Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, a newly emerged Iran-linked terror organization.

Just in April, the group claimed responsibility for a wave of attacks across the UK, Germany, North Macedonia, and the Netherlands, many of them concentrated in London.

Since emerging in early March, it has taken credit for at least 15 attacks against Jewish and Western targets across Europe.