Murder for hire: Inside Iran’s proxy war with Israel in the West

As the Iran-Israel conflict intensifies, Tehran is roiling the West with a wave of attempted hits and kidnappings against targets in Europe and the United States.

Washington and its allies have reported a sharp rise in such plots linked to the Islamic Republic in recent years. Since 2020, there have been at least 33 assassination or abduction attempts in the West in which local or Israeli authorities allege an Iran link, Reuters found in an examination of court documents and public statements by government officials.

Among recent alleged targets: a building that houses a Jewish center and kosher restaurant in downtown Athens.

From his perch in Iran, a Pakistani named Sayed Fakhar Abbas recruited an old acquaintance living in Greece and directed him to attack the site, investigators allege in documents submitted to judicial authorities in the case and viewed by Reuters. Abbas told his contact that he was working for a group that would pay some 15,000 euros per kill.

In a January 2023 WhatsApp exchange detailed in the documents, the two men discussed whether to use explosives or arson in the attack. Abbas stressed the need to provide proof of casualties after the strike. “There are secret agencies” involved, he said, without naming names. “Do the job in a way that does not leave any room for complaints by them.”

The previously unreported documents include hundreds of pages of evidence gathered during Greece’s pre-trial probe, including witness testimony, police statements and details of WhatsApp messages. They purport to show how Abbas groomed his contact, a slim-built fellow Pakistani named Syed Irtaza Haider, as the two drifted between prosaic talk of life back home and plotting attacks.

Greek authorities arrested Haider and another Pakistani last year, saying police helped dismantle a terrorist network directed from abroad that intended to inflict “human loss.” The two men face terrorism-related charges. They deny wrongdoing.

Haider, released from pre-trial detention this spring with restrictions, says he’s innocent. In an interview, the 28-year-old told Reuters he sent Abbas images of the building but intentionally stalled on carrying out any attack, hoping to get paid without harming anyone.

“It was all talk but no action,” he said. His lawyer, Zacharias Kesses, said Haider “never participated substantially” in illegal activity.

Alleged ringleader Abbas also faces terrorism-related charges. Back home in Pakistan, he is wanted on suspicion of murder, a Pakistani police official said. Abbas remains at large and couldn’t be reached for comment. The third suspect also couldn’t be reached. That man has denied wrongdoing, according to Iraklis Stavaris, a lawyer who represented him when he was charged.

Greek police declined to comment. The case awaits a decision by judicial authorities about whether to proceed to trial, according to Haider’s lawyer.

Israeli intelligence service Mossad, which assisted the Greek probe, has said the planned attack was orchestrated by Iran as part of a multinational network operated from the Islamic Republic. The Israeli government declined to comment on the case or on other Mossad activities.

Iran denies Mossad’s claim. The operational techniques fit patterns seen in some other alleged Iranian plots, however. That includes the type of target – Israeli or Jewish civilians – and the use of hired non-Iranian assassins. At least two other cases tallied by Reuters allegedly involved Pakistani nationals.

Targets of other recent alleged plots include senior U.S. officials as well as Iranian journalists and others in the diaspora. Former President Donald Trump was briefed by U.S. intelligence on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him,” his campaign recently said. Tehran has publicly denied involvement in some alleged plots in the U.S.

The shadow war is also playing out in Europe, site of the majority of the alleged plots tallied by Reuters.

“Since 2020, Iran has dramatically intensified lethal plotting against former U.S. officials, Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests in the United States and abroad,” said acting director Brett Holmgren of the National Counterterrorism Center, a U.S. intelligence-coordinating agency.

Tehran has in turn accused its rivals of terrorist acts, pointing to killings of senior members of its security forces by Israel and the U.S.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York told Reuters that the Islamic Republic “harbors neither the intent nor the plan to engage in assassination or abduction operations, whether in the West or any other country.” It called such allegations “fabrications” meant “to divert attention from the atrocities committed by the Israeli regime" in the conflict in Gaza.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has over the years repeatedly called for an end to Israel, and Tehran has been accused of antisemitism by U.S. and other Western politicians. Iran has said it respects Judaism but opposes Israel.

The recent rise in alleged hit attempts comes amid escalating tensions between the Islamic Republic and Israel. Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel on Tuesday in response to an Israeli air and ground offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon that killed the armed group's chief Hassan Nasrallah, among other leaders. Israel also recently said it thwarted an Iranian-backed assassination plot targeting prominent people.

Hired assassins

The Reuters tally of Iranian plots includes incidents that were alleged or found to have been orchestrated by the Iranian state, conducted on its behalf, or directed by someone in Iran or with close ties to it.

It is likely an undercount, because it captures only cases in which authorities have publicly alleged an Iran connection. Some governments are wary of publicly calling out Iran due to diplomatic considerations, said Matthew Levitt, director of the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.

Mossad director David Barnea last year said that over the previous year, Israeli intelligence had worked with international partners to disrupt 27 teams that tried to mount attacks abroad that were “orchestrated, masterminded, and directed by Iran.” Israel declined to provide details.

One key trend among the alleged plots reviewed by Reuters is the use of hired hit men, including organized criminals and gang members. Washington and its allies say the outsourcing is an attempt to obscure links to the Islamic Republic.

In December, a German court sentenced a German-Iranian man to two years and nine months in prison for planning an arson attack on a synagogue on behalf of the Iranian state. After learning of the security measures around the synagogue in Bochum, he threw a Molotov cocktail at a building next door, the Higher Regional Court in Dusseldorf found. The man admitted throwing the device at the building, according to the court's ruling.

In echoes of the Greek case, he was recruited by a man living in Iran, another German-Iranian who is being investigated in Germany for two unrelated murders there, the court found. It said the Iran-based man was following orders by Iranian “government agencies.” Tehran has called the allegation “baseless.”

In the United States, there have been at least five alleged Iran-linked assassination or abduction cases brought by prosecutors since 2020. Three involved murder-for-hire plots.

Prosecutors recently charged a Pakistani man who they say had close ties to Iran in connection with a foiled attempt to assassinate a U.S. politician or government official in retaliation for the U.S. killing in January 2020 of Tehran’s most prominent military commander, Qassem Soleimani.

Former President Trump was discussed by the suspect as a potential target, but the 2024 scheme wasn’t conceived as a plot to assassinate him, according to a person familiar with the matter, as Reuters previously reported.

After spending time in Iran, the suspect, Asif Merchant, flew from Pakistan to the United States to recruit hit men for the plot, according to a July criminal complaint. Merchant was indicted last month for allegedly attempting to commit terrorism and murder-for-hire. Merchant has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment.

After Soleimani’s death, Iran’s Khamenei said harsh revenge awaited the “criminals” responsible. Iran’s UN mission told Reuters that Tehran’s policy is to lawfully prosecute those responsible for killing Soleimani.

'Lethal operations'

The target of another murder-for-hire plot in the U.S. was an Iranian-American journalist and prominent critic of the Islamic Republic.

Prosecutors allege members of an Eastern European crime group attempted to assassinate the journalist under the direction of a man in Iran. An Azeri living in the U.S. allegedly received instructions and a $30,000 payment from the Iran-based man. The Azeri turned up at the journalist’s Brooklyn home with an AK-47-style assault rifle, prosecutors say.

The target, Masih Alinejad, told Reuters she was shocked when U.S. authorities informed her the armed man had come to her house. She said she had heard someone at the door but hadn’t answered because she was engrossed in a video call.

Alinejad, a vocal critic of Iran’s head-covering laws for women, was previously the target of what prosecutors say was a foiled Tehran-backed kidnapping plot. Iran has denied that.

Alinejad, 48, said she was forced to abandon her home, leaving behind friends and neighbors for a series of temporary hideouts. She said she’s had to relocate nearly 20 times in recent years under U.S. law-enforcement protection. In one long stint, she and her husband were separated from her stepchildren.

“We don’t feel safe anymore,” Alinejad said of Iranian dissidents living in the U.S.

U.S. prosecutors have charged three men in the murder plot. A fourth – the Azeri man, Khalid Mehdiyev – was named as a co-conspirator in an indictment filed last month. The Justice Department had no comment; Mehdiyev’s lawyer didn’t respond to comment requests.

Two of the other men have pleaded not guilty in the case. The third man faces charges of aiding murder and other crimes in his home country of Georgia, according to Czech authorities, who arrested him last year.

Matthew Olsen, the U.S. assistant attorney general for national security, said Tehran has failed to hide its hand in the wave of plots on American soil. “We’ve managed in a number of these cases to identify the malicious actors who are part of these proxy groups, but also to expose their direct ties back to the Iranian regime,” Olsen said in an interview.

Among the Iranian officials named by Washington as responsible for directing attack planning is Mohammad Reza Ansari. The U.S. says he is part of a Revolutionary Guards unit focused on “lethal operations” in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

Ansari tried to kill two top former U.S. government officials beginning in late 2021 with the help of another Iranian, Shahram Poursafi, according to Washington. U.S. prosecutors have charged Poursafi, who they say is a Revolutionary Guards member, with plotting to murder former National Security Adviser John Bolton and another unnamed individual. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo identified himself as the second target in one of his books.

Bolton, in an interview, said he believes he remains a target of Iran. “I think this is the most unprecedented campaign of attempted assassinations against American officials and former officials in our history,” he said.

Iran has called the allegations “ridiculous and baseless.” Poursafi remains at large. He, Ansari and the Revolutionary Guards didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Heightened tensions

At least six of the plots tallied by Reuters in Europe since 2020 involve Israeli or Jewish targets. Nearly all of those allegedly involve hired hit men.

It was during this time that Abbas contacted Haider from Iran. Haider was living in Greece as an undocumented migrant, according to the legal records Reuters viewed. Haider told Reuters that the two knew each other from back home. Both came from the same town of Alipur in Punjab province, eastern Pakistan. Both are Shi'ite Muslims, the faith of Iran's theocracy, he told Greek authorities.

Haider studied engineering in Pakistan and arrived in Greece in 2019, he told Reuters. He settled on the island of Zakynthos, a popular tourist destination. He lived in an apartment building with other Pakistani nationals and found work in an olive grove and other seasonal jobs.

Abbas also came from Pakistan. Authorities there suspect him of masterminding an October 2021 abduction and murder, according to a police official who works in Punjab province. Greek police identified an Instagram account in the documents under the name Shani Shah Sherazi that they say belongs to Abbas. The last post to the account was in mid-October 2021.

Abbas, a married father of two, crossed into Iran by road in February 2022 and hasn’t returned, a Punjab intelligence official told Reuters.

It was after arriving in Iran that Abbas recruited Haider. By April 2022, the two were in contact via WhatsApp, according to Haider’s testimony to the investigative magistrate and messages detailed in the legal documents.

In a November 2022 WhatsApp exchange, the two men discussed targets and methods of lethal attacks. Abbas told Haider to emphasize to other potential recruits what the group was willing to pay: “The reward per head is five million rupees” – roughly 16,000 euros at the time.

The men frequently discussed money. Haider badgered Abbas to send funds, according to the WhatsApp records. Abbas complained in December 2022 that he couldn’t pay his rent and had to borrow cash. “When the job is done, for the rest of our lives, we won't want money again,” Abbas wrote to Haider that month.

A staged murder

As 2022 drew to a close, Abbas pressed Haider to obtain images of the Chabad of Athens. The two-storey building, on a side street in a bustling part of the capital, houses the Jewish center, which has a prayer area and a Kosher restaurant.

Haider enlisted the help of the third suspect to supply photos and video of the building in December 2022, the man testified to the magistrate. The third suspect also told authorities he was unaware the building was a Jewish center. The third man said it was only later that Haider relayed Abbas’ proposal to pay for killings, whereupon he immediately refused.

In early January 2023, Haider traveled to Athens and recorded videos of the Chabad of Athens and surrounding area, he testified. In forwarding the footage to Abbas, Haider described the area as full of shops and tourists. Abbas responded by saying “good job.”

Their methods were amateurish at times.

Haider staged a fake murder in an apparent effort to hoodwink Abbas and his bosses. While in Athens, Haider convinced a Nepalese-born man to play the part of the victim in a mock execution, promising to pay him 2,500 euros, according to testimony by the Nepalese man contained in the documents. Haider dressed him in clothes stained in what he said was blood from a slaughtered goat, then told him to lie on the floor and play dead so Haider could video him, the man testified. The Nepalese man couldn’t be reached for comment.

Haider told the investigating magistrate that he staged the ruse because Abbas was pressuring him to kill people.

Mounting pressure

By the second week of January 2023, Abbas and Haider were focused on the Chabad of Athens restaurant, investigators allege in the documents. Abbas suggested arson, the messages indicate.

“Anything you can, do it quickly, I won’t be given much time,” Abbas wrote on January 9.

"It will be done, I promise,” Haider responded.

Within weeks, authorities swooped in. Acting on an anonymous tip, Greek police searched Haider’s apartment and detained him for possessing fake identity papers. Prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges the next month. In testimony after his arrest, Haider described the group Abbas recruited him into as a large but unnamed Iran-based organization.

As he awaits trial, Haider says he is working two jobs on Zakynthos – in a restaurant kitchen and as a security watchman. He has trouble sleeping. He faces prison in Greece, but if he beats the charges, home isn’t an option, he said, because he fears retribution from Abbas or his circle.

“I am afraid because I don’t know what will happen here,” he said, “and I cannot go back to Pakistan.”

(Reporting by Cassell Bryan-Low in London, Renee Maltezou and Yannis Souliotis in Athens, and Phil Stewart in Washington; Additional reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore, Pakistan, Luc Cohen in New York, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Jason Hovet in Prague, Sabine Wollrab in Frankfurt, Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington, Michele Kambas in Nicosia, Felix Light in Tbilisi, Niklas Pollard in Stockholm, and Marco Aquino in LimaEdited by Michael Williams)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Murder for hire: Inside Iran’s proxy war with Israel in the West