According to a statement released Sunday through the Prime Minister's Office and reported by The Jerusalem Post, Mossad named Sardar Ammar, a senior IRGC officer operating under Quds Force Commander Esmail Qaani, as the architect behind multiple thwarted operations in Australia, Greece, and Germany during 2024 and 2025. The agency said it was "exposing for the first time" the extent of Ammar's network and its global reach.
The Mossad described the network's operational methodology as "terror without Iranian fingerprints," employing high compartmentalization, recruitment of foreign nationals, utilization of criminal elements, and covert communication channels to maintain plausible deniability. The agency credited intensive cooperation with international partners for preventing dozens of planned attacks and saving "many lives."
"Thanks to intensive activity with partners in Israel and abroad, dozens of attack tracks were thwarted," the Mossad statement read, adding that the exposure has led to "a wave of arrests" across multiple countries.
The revelation comes amid mounting diplomatic fallout linked to Iranian operations abroad. In late August, Australia took the extraordinary step of expelling Iranian Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and announced plans to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The decision followed intelligence connecting Tehran to antisemitic arson attacks targeting Jewish sites in Melbourne and Sydney. Sadeghi denied the allegations before departing the country.
Germany similarly summoned Iranian Ambassador Majid Nili Ahmadabadi in July following the arrest of a Danish suspect accused of conducting surveillance on Jewish and Israeli-linked locations in Berlin on behalf of Iranian intelligence. German officials warned the activity could be preparatory to terrorist attacks, expressing grave concern about Iran's operations on European soil.
Greece has emerged as another focal point of the alleged Iranian campaign. In 2024, Greek authorities arrested multiple suspects, including Iranian and Afghan nationals, in connection with arson attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel and an Athens synagogue. The incidents followed an earlier 2023 case in which two Pakistani nationals were charged over an alleged Iranian-directed plot to target Israeli and Jewish sites in the Greek capital.
The Mossad framed Iran's strategy as a years-long campaign designed to exact costs from Israel "by harming innocents around the globe while maintaining deniability." The agency argued that publicly exposing Ammar's network "strips Iran of its space for denial, removes its immunity, and exacts heavy diplomatic costs."
The unprecedented public naming of a specific Iranian operative represents a departure from typical intelligence practices and signals Israel's determination to expose what it characterizes as Iran's global terror infrastructure. The disclosure also appears calculated to pressure international partners to take stronger action against Iranian operations in their territories.
Photo: Gemini AI