Iran International's correspondent in Stockholm
Tehran enlisted criminals to carry out armed attacks on Israeli embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen coinciding roughly with its vast missile barrage against Israel this week, a Swedish police source and another informed source told Iran International.
Shots were fired at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm on Monday evening followed by two explosions near Israel's embassy in central Copenhagen in the early hours of Wednesday. No injuries were reported.
Two Swedish teenagers, aged 16 and 19, were later arrested in connection with the incidents. Authorities released no immediate details about their identities.
A Swedish police source told Iran International on Friday that they found evidence of the Islamic Republic's involvement in the incidents in its preliminary investigation into the attack on its soil.
Another source who has been briefed on the case said: "The Islamic Republic used local criminals to carry out these terrorist acts against the embassies" in the two countries.
The attacks are part of Iranian "efforts to attack tourists and Jewish and Israeli centers in Europe," added the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the sensitivity of the matter.
Säpo, the Swedish security service, had publicly raised the possibility of Iranian involvement in the attacks.
Fredrik Halström, Säpo chief of operations, announced that the choice of targets and methods pointed in the direction of Iran but added this was an “assumption rather than pure knowledge”.
In May, Sweden arrested two teenage boys - aged 14 and 15 - after a shooting near the Israeli embassy. The Swedish intelligence agency at the time accused Tehran of recruiting gang members to attack Israeli interests in the Scandinavian country.
The Swedish insider speaking to Iran International said investigations revealed that the group behind the May attack was also "directed by agents linked to the Islamic Republic".
According to separate statements last year by Säpo and Mossad, the Swedish criminal group Foxtrot was among the gangs recruited by the Islamic Republic. With its Swedish leader of Kurdish origin Rawa Majid being allegedly detained in Iran, the group is now conducting sabotage operations on behalf of Tehran.
Foxtrot is believed to be one of the largest criminal organizations in Sweden and operates in other European countries as well. The gang is known for murders and large-scale drug trafficking.
The gangs are believed to be linked to Tehran through the drug smuggling activities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Swedish MP of Iranian descent Alireza Akhondi, who is known as a vocal critic of the Islamic Republic, told The National in May.
The Swedish source added that Tehran is recruiting criminals to "carry out terrorist actions on behalf of the Islamic Republic against anyone considered an enemy."
"It allows the Islamic Republic to distance itself from terrorist acts" and portray such behavior "merely as criminal activity." However, despite the tactic, Western intelligence and security agencies have repeatedly succeeded in "directly linking the actions of criminal intermediaries to their handlers in Iran," the source said.
Alex Selsky, an advisor to the Middle East Forum and former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Iran International from Israel, that Iran's use of criminal networks to carry out attacks on European soil, shows Iran's determination to attack Israel in novel ways but reveals its need to pay attackers.
"I think they don't have enough of a structured operation, which might show that they don't really have such a big support. They just buy it. They buy the operation," said Selsky.
While the Islamic Republic never acknowledges the recruitment of criminals for carrying out any operations outside its borders, its leaders have often blessed attacks against Israeli interests across the world.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Friday speaking before a vast crowd at a Friday sermon praised lone assailants targeting Israel.
"Every blow to the Zionist regime by any individual or group is a service to all of humanity."
This is not the first time such incidents have occurred near Israeli embassies in Northern European capitals.
In January, Swedish police found and detonated what they described as a dangerous object outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. At that time, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the situation as grave and pledged to increase surveillance of the Israeli embassy and Jewish institutions.
Last month, Sweden accused Tehran of hacking a messaging service to send 15,000 messages to Swedes with the aim of sowing division in society and portraying Sweden as a country hostile to Islam.
The Islamic Republic's embassy in Stockholm denied the accusations as baseless and harmful to bilateral ties.
The Washington Post also reported in September that the Islamic Republic, relying on Western criminal networks, had been planning violent actions against its opponents in the US and Europe.
These plots, which involve using criminal gangs instead of the Islamic Republic's intelligence agents, are seen as a warning to opponents of the clerical establishment.
