Espionage, murder and harassment: Iran’s troubled opposition mirrors the regime it is fighting

Danish authorities discovered alleged espionage for Saudi Arabia while vetting computer network for possible hacking by the Iranian regime, Borzou Daragahi reports

Iranian Americans wave Iranian opposition flags at the '2020 LA Convention for Free Iran' (AP)

To their supporters they are fearless activists, agitating against the Islamic Republic of Iran while dodging regime operatives dispatched to hunt them down.

But according to Danish and Dutch authorities, the four men arrested late on Monday were also spies for Saudi Arabia. Since at least 2012, they allegedly conducted surveillance of European businesses and individuals and reported back to the regime in Riyadh.

Police and security officials announced the arrest of the as-yet unnamed members of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA), which Iran’s regime has described as a terrorist organisation behind a number of violent attacks inside the Islamic Republic.

​​​The group was linked to an attack on a military parade in Iran’s Ahvaz, killing 24, though its leader later rescinded the claim that it was involved.

“There’s a spy war going on between Saudi Arabia and Iran,” said Ali Alfoneh, an Iranian-Danish scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute think tank in Washington. “That spy war is being fought globally, and one of those unlucky places is Denmark.”

But the arrests also underscore the troubled nature of Iran’s exiled opposition groups. Though feted by American and European anti-Tehran stalwarts, these groups have been accused not only of espionage but also of murder and intimidation, mirroring the tactics used by the regime they are trying to fight.

Copenhagen authorities, who have already accused Iran of conducting or planning clandestine operations against ASMLA on Danish soil, were outraged by the alleged spying, summoning Saudi Arabia’s ambassador for a diplomatic dressing down.

In a coordinated move, Dutch police arrested a 40-year-old Iranian ASMLA activist in the city of Delft on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks in Iran, raiding the group’s office near the Hague, the Netherlands judiciary announced.

“We will never accept such illegal and completely unacceptable activities on Danish or Dutch soil,” Jeppe Kofod, Denmark’s foreign minister, wrote on Twitter.

Denmark also announced the sentencing in absentia of the alleged handler of a Norwegian of Iranian descent who is now in prison on accusations of conducting surveillance for Tehran, in a still-reverberating 2018 case in which Danish authorities shut down much of the capital.

In part because of that alleged Iranian operation, Danish security forces had assigned all three of the men arrested on Monday 24-hour bodyguards.

“We are talking about a very complex case where two countries – Iran and Saudi Arabia – are bringing internal strife into this country,” Danish security service chief Finn Borch Andersen was quoted as saying.

Ironically, Danish authorities discovered the espionage while vetting ASMLA’s computer network for possible hacking by the Iranian regime.

Mr Andersen said the suspects, due in court on Tuesday, had for years collected intelligence about individuals in Denmark and elsewhere and funnelled the information to “a Saudi intelligence service.”

But the target of the alleged Saudi intelligence operation remained unclear, as was the agency to which the four men are accused of answering. To maintain plausible deniability, spy agencies often utilise third-party institutions when recruiting and running operatives.

Mr Alfoneh speculated that ASMLA was likely assigned to spy on “locations and individuals somehow connected to Iranian embassy” as well as Iranian-funded mosques and cultural centres in Denmark.

Iran has repeatedly accused foreign governments of engaging in the kinds of clandestine subterfuge it is accused of being engaged in abroad. On Tuesday, the judiciary sentenced a man named Amir Rahimpour to death on allegations of attempting to provide intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme to the CIA.

The judiciary spokesman said two more alleged US spies, “working under a charity foundation,” had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for espionage and “acting against national security.”

Washington hawks who have the ear of US President Donald Trump’s administration have repeatedly courted ASMLA, despite allegations against the group, and were reportedly meeting members last year after Tehran accused it of involvement in a 2018 terrorist attack on a military parade in southwest Iran which left scores dead, mostly civilians.

There’s a spy war going on between Saudi Arabia and Iran. That spy war is being fought globally, and one of those unlucky places is Denmark.

Ali Alfoneh, Arab Gulf States Institute

Among the most controversial groups that makes up the Iranian opposition abroad is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin Organisation, known by the acronym MEK, which has close ties to Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former national security adviser John Bolton.

An armed group based in Iraq for years, the MEK is now holed up in a 32-hectare compound in the western Balkan state of Albania. Its 2,600 or so ageing members have been accused by defectors of abuse and murder, according to a redacted 2018 intelligence report obtained by The Independent.

According to the report, prepared by the Albanian ministry of interior, at least four former members of the group who left had been threatened with death by MEK enforcers, allegations that were taken seriously because of the group’s history of violence against turncoats.

“Earlier in Iraq there have been murders of former members of this organisation as they have publicly appeared in to denounce the organisation’s activity in order to harm its cause,” said the report.

“Continuing to see the indications of the actions and behaviours of the concerned citizens who are currently disconnected from this organisation, there are reasonable suspicions that this situation is the same as the previous one in Iraq, which was followed by murder.”

Both the MEK and other Iranian exile groups pour resources into attacking independent journalists and researchers who focus on Iran. Last year, the State Department slashed $1.5 million in funding for and cut ties with Iran Disinformation, a project led by Iranian exiles living in the Washington area, after it emerged that the group was harassing and abusing journalists online.

“It’s about political underdevelopment,” said Mr Alfoneh. “When Iranians move outside of Iran, those who are politically active do not learn much from the democratic countries where they are living.”