Iran may turn to international terror

The war between Israel and Iran is an event the two adversaries have been preparing for decades. So far, Iranian retaliation efforts for Israel's strikes on key military and nuclear targets have been focused on attacking Israel with massive ballistic missile and suicide drones.

Israel’s multilayered air-defense system has been able to intercept most of these projectiles and while the civilian casualties have been kept to a minimum, though no air defense system could offer full protection. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the Israeli aerial and intelligence superiority allow it to hit Iran with incomparable efficiency.

Tehran’s disadvantage is further highlighted, as the “Axis of Resistance” it headed has practically ceased to exist. During the past 18 months critical elements of this axis were severely hit, as Israel degraded both Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s military capabilities and the regime in Syria collapsed all together. This axis was a critical component in Iran’s national security doctrine and was designed for massive retaliation in case of an Israeli strike on Iran’s soil.

With limited options to respond militarily against Israel, it is highly likely that Iran will initiate a global terror campaign against Israeli and Jewish targets. This is a well-established modus operandi by Tehran, which was used after previous Israeli attacks against Iran as part of the decades-long shadow war the two countries have been engaged in.

The most recent example of Iranian use of terrorism was exposed in 2023 as Cyprus announced it had foiled an Iranian terror attack on Israeli and Jewish targets. A year earlier another major Iranian terror plot against Israeli tourists was foiled in Turkey by the local security forces. Both attempts were part of an Iranian campaign to avenge the assassination of Iran's nuclear program head, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, and a mysterious explosion in the Nataz nuclear facility, both attributed to Israel.

The most damaging case was in 2012 terror, when two Hezbollah operatives attacked a busload of Israeli tourists in the city of Burgas in Bulgaria. That was Tehran’s way of retaliating against a sequence of five targeted assassinations of its nuclear scientists in the two years preceding the attack.

Israel has enacted extreme security measures around its embassies and potential Jewish targets are doing the same, a move that reflects the assumption that Iran has multiple contingency terror plots in place that might be carried out on short notice.

This assumption is not far-fetched, as in recent years various intelligence services in Western countries have exposed Iranian covert terror infrastructures on their soil.

Just a few months ago the British MI5 exposed it had foiled 20 Iran-backed terror plots on UK soil in recent years. Dan Jarvis, the British minister for security, testified in the parliament that “it is no secret that there is a long-standing pattern of the Iranian intelligence services targeting Jewish and Israeli people internationally.”

Another example of the Iranian brazen terror activity in Western countries was exposed in 2018, when a Belgium court sentenced an Iranian diplomat to 20 years in jail in Belgium for his involvement in a planned attack on an Iranian opposition group rally near Paris.

Presenting ASIO's Annual Threat Assessment in February, ASIO chief Mike Burgess mentioned the danger Australians could face from Iran. "We are not immune to hostile nation states, such as Iran, undertaking acts of security concern on our shores,” he warned.

There have already been cases of suspected Iranian activity in Australia. Australian Federal Police officials believe a string of attacks and threats against Jewish targets in Sydney in late 2024 and early 2025 may have been “founded from overseas”.

Those charged with the crimes, Sayed Mohammed Moosawi, Mohamed Hijazi and Mohommed Farhat, are all members of the Australian Shiite community.

There has been no clear link to show these crimes were directed from outside Australia, but Iran has a known modus operandi of hiring local criminals or radical members from the Shiite community as proxies to carry out covert terror attacks against Jewish targets.

Australia has headed off Iranian plots in the past. In 2023 Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil announced the security agencies had disrupted Iranian covert activity in Australia.

There have also been international cases involving Australians. One of those convicted of the 2012 Burgas terror attack in Bulgaria was an Australian Shiite, Meliad Farah.

As Israel’s Air Force continues to pound Tehran strategic assets, the regime’s need to charge Israel a price for its actions will rise. Iran's ability to carry out global terror attacks mean attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets outside of Israel are a danger that must not be overlooked. The cooperation between Israeli intelligence agencies and local security services around the world is critical to address this Iranian threat.