Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, Ron Dermer, has conveyed his well-wishes to Pouria Zeraati, the Iran International TV journalist who was attacked in a stabbing incident in London.
Dermer, a key advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former ambassador of Israel to the United States, personally reached out to Zeraati on Monday morning to convey his wishes for a swift recovery.
In the phone call, Dermer condemned the attack, suspected by many to have been carried out by covert Iranian regime security agents.
Dermer and the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, were both interviewed by Zeraati on his program, “Final Word”, last year.
This is believed to have further fueled Tehran's anger, leading to a crackdown on journalists expressing critical opinions of authorities, both domestically and internationally since the nationwide anti-regime 2022 uprising.
Several Iran International journalists have faced death threats and foiled assassination attempts orchestrated by Iranian regime security forces on British territory, prompting the temporary relocation of the broadcaster’s London offices to Washington last year.
The attack on Zeraati comes shortly after the disclosure of leaked top-secret intelligence documents, revealing Tehran's targeting of several UK-based personnel of Iran International TV. These threats extended to their family members based in Iran, with the imposition of financial sanctions amidst the nationwide protests in 2019.
The broadcast network says it was aware of the intimidation tactics at the time, but the documents, obtained by Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) hackers, offered indisputable proof that Iran’s Intelligence Ministry and judicial officials were coordinating the harassment efforts.
Additionally, ITV reported exclusively last December, that the regime plotted to assassinate two of Iran International’s TV anchors in London.
Iranian spies offered a people-smuggler $200,000 to assassinate Fardad Farahzad and Sima Sabet – codenamed “the bride and the groom” – outside their London studio.
The plot, which was foiled by a double-agent, was meant to show critics of the regime they “could do harm to them at any time”.
In December, a UK court convicted Chechen national Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev of gathering information on Iran International's London headquarters for a potential terror attack.
Prior to that, in November 2022, Volant Media, the parent company of Iran International, stated that two of its journalists had been informed by the Metropolitan Police of direct threats, posing an imminent, credible, and significant risk to their lives and those of their families. The network decided to move its broadcast operation to Washington DC temporarily in early 2023. Broadcasting was resumed from London last September.
Iran's Islamic regime has conducted hundreds of attacks against dissidents and journalists outside the country over the past 45 years.
At least 144 people were killed in the attack claimed by Islamic State, which saw gunmen open fire at the Crocus City Hall.
Days before the shootings in the Russian capital, Tehran had allegedly sent warnings to Moscow, through intelligence gleaned from interviews with Islamic State terrorists connected to the deadly twin bombings in Iran in January.
After the terror attacks that killed around 100 in Kerman, Iran claimed to have arrested 35 people, including a commander of Islamic State's Afghanistan-based branch ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), which claimed responsibility for the Iran attacks, the worst since the founding of the Islamic Republic.
Another source told Reuters that Tehran had failed to provide specific intelligence to Moscow such as the location and timing of the attack, though warned that members of ISIS-K had already travelled to Russia, failing to foil the deadly shootings.
However, both Iran and Russia, vehement foes of the US had ignored warnings from Washington of the imminent terror attacks. Moscow was warned three days before the Friday night massacre and Iran more than a week before the Kerman attacks.
Relations between Iran and Russia have deepened since the war in Ukraine, in which Iran has provided drones used in Russia’s offensives. The two sanctioned nations have also become key financial allies as they skirt global crackdowns.
Security and intelligence ties continue to deepen between the two pariah states. In July, Iran and Russia signed a new cooperation agreement to expand bilateral security and law enforcement cooperation, inked between Iran’s police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, and the head of Russia’s national guard, Viktor Zolotov.
Then in December, Iran's parliament approved a bill aimed at fostering cooperation with Russia in the realm of information security. Comprising nine articles, the bill focuses on combating cyber threats, fortifying information security measures, and fostering collaboration between Iran and Russia. A key clause in the legislation addresses the exchange of information and cooperation in prosecuting criminal offenses between the two nations. Military drills between the two nations and their ally China have also been happening with increasing frequency.
The attack was a huge blow to the Kremlin, known for its high-level network of intelligence at home and abroad. Both the attacks in Iran’s Kerman and Moscow involved Tajik nationals, ISIS-K having aggressively recruited from the impoverished former Soviet republic of in recent years. While Islamic State has been largely defeated in Iraq and Syria, ISIS-K remains strong, covering Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
Reuters also claims that the issue has been discussed between Iran and Tajikistan in a bid to halt the militant activities against Iran’s Shi’ites, hated by Islamic State’s Sunni-following Islamists.
While in 2022 Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a Shi'ite shrine in Iran that killed 13 people, also carried out by a Tajik national, the Moscow attack came as a shock. Islamic State also carried out twin bombings in 2017 that targeted Iran's parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Iran's foreign ministry and the Kremlin did not reply to a request for comment on the latest revelations in the Reuters story and Russia has instead continued to blame Ukraine for the attack in spite of the admission by ISIS-K.
