Iran Was Behind Paris Bomb Plot, State Department Suggests

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (2nd-L) on October 3, 2015 at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. Large-scale protests in Iran are now calling for an end to the regime. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

The Iranian regime may have been behind a foiled terrorist attack in Paris where Iranian opposition leaders were meeting, according to a State Department briefing.

An unnamed senior State Department official gave a press briefing while en route to Brussels, Belgium, on July 10, about a three-day meeting with Saudi officials to coordinate placing stronger pressure on Iran.

“We discussed new ways to deprive the regime of revenues to terrorize people and to terrorize other nations. We discussed how Iran uses embassies as cover to plot terrorist attacks,” the official stated, according to a transcript.

As an example, the official noted the recent terrorist attempt in Paris.

“The most recent example is the plot that the Belgians foiled,” the officials said. That involved an Iranian diplomat operating out of Iran’s embassy in Vienna, plotting to bomb a meeting or Iranian opposition leaders in Paris, the official said.

“And the United States is urging all nations to carefully examine diplomats in Iranian embassies to ensure their countries’ own security,” the official added. “If Iran can plot bomb attacks in Paris, they can plot attacks anywhere in the world, and we urge all nations to be vigilant about Iran.”

According to a release from Germany’s public prosecutor general, the Iranian diplomat was the 46-year-old Iranian citizen Assadollah A. It states he was also an employee of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, which is mainly tasked with observing and fighting against opposition groups inside and outside Iran.

The diplomat was arrested on July 1 under a European arrest warrant from Belgian law enforcement. The diplomat allegedly commissioned a couple to carry out a bomb attack on the location where the Iranian opposition leaders were meeting. It states, translated from German, “On the day of the planned blast, Belgian security forces arrested the couple en route to France and secured the device.”