The Iranian Regime is spying on Israelis and Jews in Germany
Intelligence agents for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia issued disturbing findings on Thursday about the US designated Iranian terrorist entity Quds Force targeting Israelis and Israeli institutions.
According to the North Rhine-Westphalia intelligence report, which was reviewed by The Jerusalem Post, “A main focus [of Iran’s regime] is spying on Israeli and pro-Israeli institutions, as well as citizens of the State of Israel living here and persons of the Jewish faith. According to the constitutional protection agency, there were findings that Quds Force research activities in North Rhine-Westphalia took place in the year under review.”
The report covered the period of 2018. The Post reported on Thursday that the number of Hezbollah members increased in North Rhine-Westphalia from 105 in 2017 to 110 in 2018, according to the intelligence document. Hezbollah is the Iranian regime’s chief strategic partner.
The 363-page intelligence report, which covers a range of security threats to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, referenced Iran’s regime 16 times and Lebanese entity Hezbollah 21 times.
A spokeswoman for the intelligence agency told the Post on Friday that a specialist in the area of Iran will provide an answer to Post queries about the nature of Quds Force’s “research activities” in the state.
The Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to German authorities paid the Pakistani citizen Haidar Syed-Naqfi at least €2,052 from July 2015 through July 2016 to target Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions.
In 2017, a Berlin court sentenced the then 31-year-old Haidar Syed-Naqfi to four years and three months in prison for working for Iran’s intelligence service to spy “against Germany and another NATO member.”
According to German prosecutors, Haidar Syed-Naqfi was assigned to identify Israeli and Jewish institutions and Israel advocates in Germany, France and other unnamed Western European countries for possible attacks. He monitored a German-Jewish newspaper’s headquarters in Berlin and Reinhold Robbe, the former head of the German-Israel Friendship Society. The US designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization in April.
Haidar Syed-Naqfi spied on French-Israeli business Prof. David Rouach, who teaches at the elite Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris and served as head of the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce, and, according to German authorities, his actions were “a clear indication of an assassination attempt.”
The US, Canada, Britain, the Arab League, Israel, and the Netherlands classify Hezbollah’s entire organization a terrorist entity. Germany and the EU only proscribed Hezbollah’s so-called “military wing” a terrorist unit in 2013. The US government, a group of US bi-partisan democratic and republican congressional representatives, and the Central Council of Jews in Germany have appealed to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to outlaw Hezbollah in Germany. Merkel has consistently refused to designate Hezbollah a terrorist entity.
When asked if Germany’s interior minister Horst Seehofer plans to outlaw Hezbollah, Steve Alter, a spokesman for Seehofer, wrote the Post: “We basically do not comment on any individual cases for reasons of personal privacy protection. In addition, we do not publicly comment on any prohibition considerations.”
A May German intelligence from the state of Lower Saxony said the number of Hezbollah members and supporters climbed from 950 in 2017 to 1,050 in 2018. Seven years ago this month, Hezbollah operatives blew up an Israeli tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, murdering five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver.
Source: JP
