“These hostile [Iranian] activities and foreign interference undermine the security of Canada and Canadians, as well as our democratic values and sovereignty,” said a spokesperson from Canada’s intelligence agency.
By World Israel News Staff
Iran is ramping up its crackdowns on dissidents, including political activists and journalists, living abroad, and recruiting third-party criminals for assassination attempts against Iranian and Israeli nationals in Europe and North America, according to a Washington Post report.
The Post report comes on the heels of a recent warning to Iranians in the UK from the country’s MI5 intelligence agency. MI5 told dissidents that Iranian agents and paid criminals acting on their behalf were attempting to kidnap and kill critics of the regime living in London and other British localities.
Seyed Emami, a dual Canadian-Iranian national, told the Post that Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents had visited him at his Vancouver home to essentially warn him that his popular Farsi-language podcast – which contains discussions of topics not approved by the Islamic regime – had made him a target.
Although the agents did not explicitly say that he was on a hit list, they urged Emami to take security precautions and be vigilant in the face of the threats.
“The general feeling I got was they were beginning to take this issue seriously,” Emami told the Post. “They realize if people are being threatened on their own land, it’s a whole different story.”
A spokesperson for the Canadian intelligence service, told the Post that it “is aware that hostile state actors, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, monitor and intimidate Canadian communities, with diaspora communities often disproportionately targeted.”
“CSIS is actively investigating several threats to life emanating from the Islamic Republic of Iran based on credible intelligence,” the spokesperson continued.
“Ultimately, these hostile activities and foreign interference undermine the security of Canada and Canadians, as well as our democratic values and sovereignty.”
According to the report, Iran has outsourced some of its efforts to murder dissidents to local, low-level criminal. The regime reportedly recruited a French drug dealer and street thugs for a failed assassination plot, as well as tried to enlist prisoners from Pakistan and other Indian subcontinent countries incarcerated in Dubai to murder Israelis in Colombia.
Former senior CIA Norman T. Roule expressed concern to the Post that the American response to the recent attempted kidnapping of an Iranian-US national living in Brooklyn was weak. Without a strong message that Iranian attacks on its citizens abroad won’t be tolerated, Tehran could possible inspire similar regimes to follow suit.
“If the international community has no red line for these operations, why shouldn’t another rogue country feel it could undertake similar aggression without cost?” he asked the Post.
Source: World Israel News
