Senior Swedish Intelligence Official Confirms Islamic Republic's Plot to Kill Jews in Sweden

A few days after a Swedish media outlet reported on the Iranian government's plan to kill several Jewish citizens in this European country, a senior Swedish intelligence official confirmed, stating, "The Islamic Republic had planned attacks against Sweden." Last Tuesday, February 6, Radio Sweden reported that two Iranians were suspected of planning to kill several members of the Jewish community in Sweden, who were arrested in 2021 and expelled from Sweden in 2022. According to the Associated Press, Daniel Stenling, head of the counter-espionage department of Sweden's Security Service, told Radio Sweden on Thursday that the Islamic Republic "had prepared and carried out activities aimed at executing a physical attack in Sweden." He added that they had identified and worked on some of these cases and, based on their assessments, had managed to neutralize them. This senior intelligence official refrained from providing further details about the thwarted plots. According to Radio Sweden, Mehdi Ramazani and Farishta Sanaei-Farid, the two expelled Iranians, had applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015 under the false claim of Afghan nationality and ultimately received asylum. They were linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Hans Erman, the Deputy Attorney General of Sweden, had previously confirmed these statements in an interview with the Associated Press, stating that the two mentioned Iranians were suspected of planning a "terrorist attack" on Swedish soil and had been expelled from the country. The Swedish Security Service had also previously announced that agents of the Islamic Republic were active in the Scandinavian region and classified it as one of the countries posing the "greatest intelligence threat" to Sweden. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the Radio Sweden report as "very serious" on Wednesday, stating that many individuals with dubious backgrounds had entered the country, and it was important to identify and prevent the entry of dangerous individuals. Relations between Tehran and Stockholm have been strained following the arrest of Hamid Noury, a former judiciary official of the Islamic Republic, accused of involvement in the executions of the 1980s, and his trial, during which the Islamic Republic has detained several Swedish citizens.