UK, US and allies accuse Iran of cross-border assassination plots

UK and 13 allies accuse Iran of plotting killings and kidnappings on Western soil with Tehran rejecting the claim.

The United Kingdom and 13 allied nations have publicly accused Iran’s intelligence services of orchestrating a wave of assassination attempts, abductions and intimidation campaigns against individuals living in Europe and North America.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday, governments including the United States, France, Germany and Canada denounced Tehran’s alleged extraterritorial operations as a flagrant breach of national sovereignty.

“We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the group said.

The signatories – which also included Albania, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK – urged Iranian authorities to halt these activities, which they claimed were increasingly carried out in partnership with international criminal groups.

Iran rejects accusations

In a statement on Friday, Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the claims as “baseless”.

He called them “an attempt to divert public attention from the most pressing issue of the day, the genocide in occupied Palestine”.

Baghaei said the accusations were “blatant fabrications … designed as part of a malicious Iranophobia campaign aimed at exerting pressure on the great Iranian nation”.

A UK parliamentary committee recently attributed at least 15 plots targeting individuals in the UK since 2022 to Iranian intelligence operatives.