Hidden Hands And Hired Guns: How Iran Hits Its Enemies Abroad

Many Iranian operations abroad have historically been conducted by intelligence officers operating directly on behalf of the state.

Iran has also relied on allied proxy organizations, including the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. At the same time, Iranian embassies and diplomatic missions have repeatedly been accused of serving functions beyond traditional diplomacy.

Intelligence collection, surveillance of dissidents and support for covert operations have all been linked to Iranian diplomatic networks. Perhaps the most prominent example is the case of Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi. In 2021, Assadi was convicted in Belgium for his role in a planned bombing attack against an Iranian opposition gathering in France three years earlier.

The case demonstrated that diplomatic cover plays a significant role in Iran's foreign activities. It also highlighted the continued importance of state-directed operations in Tehran's security strategy.

As I have found in my own research, another shift has taken place over the past two decades. Rather than relying solely on intelligence officers or diplomatic personnel, Iran has often turned to local criminal groups to carry out surveillance, intimidation or attacks abroad.

A leading example of this was the 2015 assassination of Iranian dissident Mohammad Reza Kolahi in the Netherlands. Naoufal Fassih, a key figure in the European drug trade, was later convicted by a Dutch court of hiring hitmen to carry out the murder. Dutch intelligence said there were“strong indications that Iran was involved.”

Turkey-based Iranian drug trafficker Naji Ibrahim Sharifi Zindashti and his network were also implicated in the Istanbul assassination of media executive Saeed Karimian in 2017. A Tehran court had previously sentenced Karimian to six years in prison in absentia for allegedly spreading propaganda against Iran.

Zindashti's network was found to have orchestrated the 2019 killing of Iranian cybersecurity defector Masoud Vardanjani, too. Vardanjani previously worked in Iran's defense ministry and had become a vocal critic of the Iranian authorities before his death. He was also killed in Istanbul.

This approach to carrying out violence abroad has several advantages for Iran. First, criminals often have capabilities that foreign intelligence services lack. They understand local environments, have access to illicit markets and can move within criminal networks without attracting the same attention as foreign intelligence officers.

Second, the use of intermediaries provides plausible deniability. Even when investigators identify the immediate perpetrators of an operation, linking those people directly to Iranian state institutions can be difficult.