Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador, closed the Iranian embassy, and ordered four Iranian officials to leave within three days. The government designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Australian security forces reported credible intelligence linking Iran to multiple attacks on Jewish targets, including an arson attack on a kosher restaurant in Sydney last October and an attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December. The IRGC reportedly operates through a decentralized network of criminal actors, using drug cartels, crime syndicates, and petty criminals. The IRGC has a history of targeting Jewish civilians, most notably the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Australia is not known for picking fights. It prioritizes trade and has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world-even the reclusive North Korea. But on Tuesday, it did something it hadn't done since World War II: It expelled an ambassador. Shutting down the Iranian embassy, the Australian government declared Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi persona non grata and ordered him and three other Iranian officials to leave within three days.
The decisiveness of Canberra's actions is a measure of the extremity of Iran's behavior. According to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australian security forces have "credible intelligence" linking Iran to several attacks on Australian Jews last year. Iran is specifically accused of organizing an act of arson on a kosher restaurant in Sydney last October and another on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December.
One might think the assaults were too clumsy and amateurish to have been the work of a state apparatus. But those of us who have tracked the IRGC's overseas activities through the years recognized the playbook: The militia works with a decentralized network of criminal actors, including drug cartels and crime syndicates, as well as petty thieves here and there.
#australia-iran-relations #islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps #attacks-on-jewish-communities #diplomatic-expulsion
Collection
[
|
...
]