Is Iran Recruiting Spies to Conduct Anti-Semitic Attacks?

0:03For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. This episode is brought to you by HP. In intelligence work, it's rarely the obvious problem that causes failure. It's the overlooked detail or the flaw nobody quite solved. the kind of vulnerability intelligence services look for. And running a business is the same, especially when you're building or growing a team. It's the risks you can't see or don't understand. HP designs technology so devices, collaboration tools and security work together as a single system, helping teams keep everything running smoothly at home, in the office and out in the field.

0:51The protection is built in. hardware level security working quietly in the background, helping reduce risk without creating more work. With a team of business advisors, HP helps businesses of all sizes find technology that fits their needs and budget. To see how HP helps businesses work securely and productively, visit hp.com forward slash classified. The rest of Classified listeners also benefit from 10 % off HP business technology with code T-R-I-C-10.

1:33well hello and welcome to a very special bonus episode of the rest is classified um gordon carrera is not with me today uh which is you know it could be good or bad depending on your persuasion but he is off and instead i am joined um by the award-winning cnn international correspondent, Jamana Karacha, who for more than two decades has been reporting extensively from countries all across the Middle East and North Africa and has been integral to the amazing CNN coverage that is coming out of that region. And she is here today with us to discuss in particular her latest investigation into whether Iran-linked groups are recruiting individuals, sometimes through social media to carry out arson attacks against mostly Jewish communities across Europe.

2:24I think we're also going to have a really interesting and wide-ranging conversation about what's going on in the region now and kind of how Iranian intelligence is conducting operations in the midst of this conflict. So, Javonna, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to The Rest is Classified. It's great to be here with you, David. Jamon, maybe first, you have spearheaded this really fascinating investigation into how these Iranian intelligence-linked groups are recruiting people across Europe in an attempt to conduct a range of horrific attacks. Could you just tell us a bit about this investigation, what you found as you dug into this?

3:03Well, you know, David, back in March, that's when we started seeing these arson attacks targeting mostly Jewish sites, Jewish organizations, synagogues in different parts of Europe. I think the one that grabbed everyone's attention was that massive attack in the predominantly Jewish area of Golders Green in North London that targeted the volunteer ambulance service, the Hitzola. I mean, those pictures at that time shocked so many in London. That was at the end of March, and that was the first attack that took place in the UK. And it was claimed by a group that we'd never heard of before, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyah, known as Hayi.

3:49And this is a group that emerged just a few days after the war in Iran began. And we started looking, and it had claimed several attacks in Belgium, the Netherlands, France. And then you had that first attack in the UK and then several others that followed the following week. And we started hearing from different security experts and British authorities as well, that they were investigating and looking into Iran's links to this group that appears, appeared only really online. Their claims of responsibility, propaganda videos, would pop up on telegram channels that are run by the Iranian-backed Shia groups in Iraq.

4:35And so, you know, everything was pointing towards Iran being involved in these attacks. And that this group, as some experts were telling us, appears to be a front for the IRGC. And that's really how we started digging into what is going on. Who is this group? How are they operating in the UK or Europe? And, you know, when you look at the suspects, David, in most of these arson attacks, most of them seem to be young teenagers in a lot of these cases. And the question was, how are they being recruited? Right? And that's how we started really digging into it. How are they being recruited? Because it does seem, I guess, on the face of it, that with some of these suspects, there wouldn't be this ideological impulse that's drawing them into it.

5:30But what's, as you've dug into it, I mean, what is the motivation or what are the motivations for people getting involved in this? So we're still waiting to hear from the British authorities and others in Europe about how these young people are being recruited. But they have been looking into whether they're using criminal proxies to hire them. Are they using gangs? This is a tactic that we've seen the Iranian intelligence use in the past in places like Sweden and Germany. That is one possibility there. The other one is online recruitment. That's how we started really digging into these online channels and how easy it is to recruit young people these days.

6:13It literally is one click away. um and we heard from one of the suspects in the uk a 17 year old who targeted um the kenton synagogue in northwest London that firebomb attack the 17 year old in a statement said he had no idea that this was a synagogue that he has nothing against the Jewish people so that of course raised questions what what are these kids being told that they're doing did he not Google the address like before he did it? I don't know. Do you buy it? I guess is maybe the question. Or do you think that's part of the defense? I mean, it's very difficult to get into because of the regulations in the UK and what was said in court.

7:01But I can tell you this, we went to the synagogue. It's hard to miss what it was, right? You can see the Hebrew writing outside. You can see a big menorah as well outside. So it's clearly a synagogue. And then in the case of another 17-year-old in Belgium, we spoke with his lawyer who described the situation with this kid. She said he was used as cannon fodder, that they're getting paid to carry out these attacks, not really understanding what it is that they're doing and who they're doing it for. And you just look at it, this model it's quite a powerful tool whether it is the Iranians because we can't confirm that it's the Iranians behind it but we've heard authorities in the different countries saying that this is really what they're looking into whoever is behind this it's cheap it's easy it has a devastating impact on the communities that are being targeted when it comes to the Jewish community especially when we've spoken with people.

8:08And then it also gives them that incredible kind of plausible deniability where you have these different layers of who's doing the recruitment, how they're doing the recruitment, who is filming this, who's posting these videos. You've got several layers to whoever is ordering this at the end, right? I wanted to ask you about that because I know you can't confirm it, but given your own analysis and the security experts you've spoken to, what's the best, I guess, hypothesis for how this ladders up to Iran? Like, how does it actually connect up into the IRGC, let's say? So let's look at this case, right, with these arson attacks, with Harakat Ashab Al-Yami.

8:54Online group, we've not seen it before, just popped up days after Iran is under pressure. Israel and the U.S. are attacking Iran, and all of a sudden you have these attacks taking place in Western capitals. And it looks like quite a powerful, you know, threat or message because at the beginning, right, up until a stabbing attack that was claimed by Ashab al-Yamin, no one really got hurt in these arson attacks that were taking place late at night. It was a message and a very powerful one that this war doesn't necessarily have to stay contained in this region. You started looking into the group and its links, and we had reporting that no one else had a source that is close to Kata 'ib Hezbollah, the most powerful of Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia militias, paramilitary groups.

9:52And a source close to Qatab Hezbollah told us that the groups Harakat Ashab Al-Yamin and Qatab Hezbollah are linked. And that some members of Hai are Iraqi. And at the same time as well, we started looking into these different telegram groups where these claims were first appearing. Two days before the first attack happened, this was I think on the 9th of March, a message comes up on one of these groups that is linked to Gutaab, Hezbollah, and it says, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin, coming soon in Arabic. So you could see all these, you know, links to Iran. But I think the most significant thing was this recent arrest in the U.S., or it actually happened outside the U.S.

10:43of an Iraqi individual who, according to some media reports, was arrested in Turkey. and he was taken to New York and he appeared in court. He was charged. And this guy is a leader in Qatar of Hezbollah that U.S. prosecutors say coordinated or inspired 18 attacks, including those attacks that we've been talking about, and plots as well, targeting Jewish targets in the U.S., in New York, in L.A., and Arizona. And this guy, you know, there are photos of him with Qasem Soleimani from the old days, right? So, I mean, you look at all these, you know, different threads. And I think up until that announcement came from the U.S.

11:34recently, there was a lot of speculation. And then you see those links very clear there. And according to U.S. prosecutors, they say that the way they got him was he was trying to recruit a person he thought was a member of the cartel to carry out a tax in the U.S. and offering to pay them in crypto. But that person was an undercover FBI agent. Interesting. And that's how they managed to get him, right? So I think that made that link between Iraqi militias, Iran, the IRGC, of course, as it pretty much backs and controls very much the Iraqi paramilitary groups. It was very, very clear when we saw that.

12:22You know, it's interesting on the cartel front. I believe that there was an attempt, I think it might have actually been linked to the attempt to, this was 12, 13 years ago, to try to kill the Saudi ambassador to the US in Washington. And I believe that the Iranians in that instance had also attempted to use someone linked to a cartel to either conduct the assassination or to help smuggle something across the border. So that there's definitely, you know, there's definitely some connection there. I'm curious, in your investigation, you actually interacted to some degree with this group on the Telegram channel that they operate.

13:05Well, tell us about that and what that interaction or set of interactions was like. So David, when we're trying to figure out, right, how are they recruiting them? Is this through the gangs? Is this through these criminal proxies? Or, you know, some of the security experts we spoke to said, look, just check out these different telegram groups out there. It's that simple. They said that this is very much your Russia Wagner sort of model that, you know, it's their playbook, right, that's being used by the Iranians now. And it sounded pretty crazy, I have to say, at the beginning, it just looked like too obvious, where they're saying we're recruiting, we're the Iranian intelligence, do you want to come and help us?

13:46If you do, just click start. And so we, myself and our producer Flo, we went undercover online as two young London Telegram users. So Flo starts a conversation with this group, this channel called VIP Employment. And they're offering to hire high paid agents for the Iranian intelligence. And they're open about this. They're open that they represent Iranian intelligence on the Telegram channel. Absolutely. You've got the flag of the Islamic Republic. You've got, yeah, with the advertising saying that, you know, they're going after, you know, they're targeting Zionist entities. They are offering jobs to, you know, people who are willing to help and assist.

14:40I mean, it's so open. It's out there. And so Flo starts a conversation with them. And the first question you get is, where are you? Which city are you in? How old are you? What are your capabilities, right? So they want to know more about you. I've heard from some experts that this is about building some sort of a database, right, where they've got that. They've got, you know, different people around the world they can use. In Flo's case, it was they asked her to print out two posters, anti-Trump, anti-war posters, and put them up in different parts of London. And they said that they would pay her$2 in crypto per poster.

15:24And were also telling her how to avoid surveillance cameras. So it sounded like, is this some sort of a, I don't know, like a test, you know, checking to see if she's going to be loyal and do this, an initiation task of sorts. um in my case they went straight into it um asking me if i had access to any zionist individuals or assets and when i asked what does that mean they said anyone who's in the idf shinbet uh mossad do you have access to any individuals i said well are you looking for people just in israel and they said no we're looking for anyone who can harm israeli individuals or assets um you know and that point we thought we had to end that conversation there right because it sounded quite dangerous at that point but you just see how easy it is to start these conversations now who's running this who's behind this we don't know but what we found is the fact that this same channel name, VIP Employment, appeared in indictments in Israel last year, and that they were also trying to recruit Israelis in that same way.

16:47I got relatively deep into this when I was researching my fourth book, because the whole premise was looking at this kind of shadow conflict between Israel and Iran. And I was trying to figure out the ways in which the Iranians try or try to penetrate Israeli society. And it's interesting, the parallels, because in many cases in Israel, the Iranian recruits, again, most of it's done digitally, similar, right, to these cases in Europe. And the asks were in some ways quite similar. Could you graffiti, you know, buildings? Could you put up anti-government signs, right? Stuff protesting Netanyahu and his government.

17:32And it kind of ratcheted up in some cases to like, actually trying to, you know, murder businessmen, scientists, journalists. I think there was a plot actually, which I'm not sure how far it got to try to kill Netanyahu and some people around, around Tibet government. What feels different here is it's like a geographic extension beyond Israel into Europe. And of course, it's happening during, during the war. But do you get the sense it's the same playbook and maybe the same people? Or is there a connection between these two arenas, I guess, from an espionage standpoint? Absolutely. I think, I mean, you look at it, it seemed to have worked in Israel, where you have a country now that is, according to Israeli officials, facing its most serious domestic espionage crisis ever, right?

18:20It's unprecedented the number of Israelis who have been allegedly hired by the Iranian intelligence, like you say, digitally. And you look at that, and you look at what people were being asked to do, and how easy it is that I think, why not? Why wouldn't the Iranian regime at a time like this, when it wants to put pressure on other Western countries, why not try and use that same playbook elsewhere? And that's exactly what security experts we've been talking to for the past few weeks have been telling us it's exactly the same thing. And they're saying they've also learned that from the Russians.

19:02Tell me more about that. It's a Russian playbook that the Iranians have adopted. That's what they're saying. You know, there was another arson attack in the UK. Whether there's any sort of coordination between the Russians and the Iranians, that's unclear. But that's a possibility, according to some experts. Or it's just, you know, just adopting that same tactic and using something that, you know, keeps that distance between the state that may be behind this and, you know, your low level guns for hire who are carrying out these different attacks. I think what is really concerning right now is where does this go next?

19:48In the UK, for example, right? You know, I've been for years speaking with Iranian dissidents and journalists who have been targeted by the Islamic Republic outside the country. And so this is not new. They're not surprised that this is actually happening. You know, there have been plots, whether it's in the U.S. or in the U.K. where I am, where I've been speaking to people to assassinate and kill these journalists and dissidents where they would hire criminals to do this. And the concern right now is it could get much worse, is what people are saying. And they're really worried that, you know, right now, if the Iranians are seeing how effective this method is and using it to put pressure on these different Western governments, could they take this further?

20:43And I think what happened in Golders Green with the stabbing attack also worried people that two members of the Orthodox Jewish community were seriously hurt in that stabbing attack that was claimed by this Iranian-linked group. I can tell you that it's put people on edge, whether it's the Jewish community or Iranian dissidents. We've talked a little bit about it, but I wanted to focus on it because I think it's important. what do you think the goal is behind it like what what's the why for iran because to some degree it feels like just an eye for an eye you know we're under attack we're gonna you know impose some pain on you but what do you see as the the strategic motivation for it you know if you look at these attacks when they claim these attacks what they're saying is and we're not talking about iran right We're talking about this front, what experts believe is a front for the IRGC that's claiming these attacks.

21:43They're saying, OK, this is revenge for the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei. This is, you know, for pushing to stop the war. I do think it's a threat to the West, to these different countries that have not gotten involved in this war. We can bring this war to the heart of Europe if we want to. And it's not necessarily about using its missiles or weapons. It is the fact that you can weaponize teenagers. You can use people within these different countries to carry out these attacks. It's not the most sophisticated way, but it's this hybrid warfare, I think, as it's described. And it's really, really effective to put pressure on these Western countries to stop the war on Iran.

22:32It seems really challenging to counter because it's obviously it doesn't involve an Iranian handler somehow getting himself or herself into the UK to physically meet with people. As your interaction with the recruiters suggests, the quantity has a quality all its own here and that they can shoot this out sort of scattershot and see what sticks. It seems cheap. Like my sense from your reporting is that they're not paying great money for this. So, you know, you're probably finding people who are in some measure of financial straits who are keen to do it for not much money. What are you hearing from security experts on like how you would actually stop this?

23:16How do you counter it? It's very, very difficult. I think the British have come out saying, you know, that they're basically going to crack down really hard on anyone who's involved in these attacks. And, you know, almost every one of those attacks that happen in the UK, they've arrested suspects and they're fast tracking a lot of these cases and they're moving them fast. They want to deter people from joining them, saying, look, you know, if you think this is an easy way of making quick money, think twice because you're disposable for them. They'll use you and they'll drop you. And this has been the message from British authorities.

23:59I think at this point, that's their main tactic of showing how these kids are left on their own. But it's very, very challenging. I mean, MI5 last year said that they had disrupted an unprecedented number of Iranian plots targeting the UK, more than 20 plots. And, you know, I've attended some of the court hearings of some of the people who were detained and arrested before this spate of the anti-Semitic arson attacks. several people were arrested in the UK for spying on Jewish and Israeli sites. And it was very interesting without naming those individuals, without going into details of the case, because you know, of the restrictions when it comes to these hearings, I can tell you in the case of one of them, it was very, very interesting, David.

24:53It was a couple of guys who were just going around and taking photos and just logging information about these different targets, right, in the UK, in London. And according to prosecutors, they allege that this was being sent back to someone in Iran. It's that easy, right? But we don't know, is this someone who's being paid? Is this someone whose family is under pressure back in Iran? So it's going to be very, very difficult. It's a new kind of challenge that security services in these different countries now are going to have to face. It is a war that is coming to these Western nations, right?

25:38It's not a war that is contained in this region. And I think controlling it, especially when you see how easy it is to recruit people online, and especially when you look at the state of the economy right now, it is going to be very very challenging well you know i guess also if you just if you look at the way that the iranians have have done this in israel up to this point there is this kind of escalation ladder not not in each individual case but kind of more broadly where it seems as they as they do find people who are willing to to do more and more kind of you know extreme things you end up with more fire bombings.

26:24I think in a couple of cases in Israel, the Iranians actually tried to get people to start forest fires, to do kind of mass vandalism. I'm curious, Javanna, about something that's fascinated me in looking at this conflict, because the Israelis and their ability to penetrate Iran are so unbelievably effective. And then when you look at the stuff we've been talking about, the Iranian response in many ways is very crude. And I'm curious if you could, this is zooming out a bit, but why is the intelligence conflict between these two countries so lopsided? Because it does, it just, it feels the level of sophistication, the scale, the scope, the level of success, like the Israelis are way ahead.

27:14And it doesn't mean that the stuff you're reporting on obviously has a cost and it's tremendously scary, but the Iranians are behind. I'm just curious why you think structurally that's been the case. Look, it's crude, but it's effective, right? You know, when you look at what has been happening in Israel and this, you know, unprecedented domestic espionage crisis that they're going through and, you know, what you were mentioning. Yes, sometimes people are just hired to burn posters and do these sort of things that are not necessarily breaking any laws. But taking pictures of sensitive sites, they have also targeting certain individuals.

28:01Some of these sites, according to prosecutors, you know, that they took pictures of and provided, sent them to the Iranians, according to these indictments, have been targeted by the Iranians during the June war last year, the 12-day war, and again during the war this year. Look, I think the Israelis have the most sophisticated, most advanced intelligence services, not just in this region and beyond. And I think over the past few years, even when people already knew that, they would still get shocked every time you'd see the level of targeting that was taking place inside Iran. And for the Iranians themselves, I mean, for the regime, that also must have been absolutely just the impact that had on the morale, on the confidence within the regime, you know, targeting of the different figures as well as what we saw happen in Lebanon as well, that level of infiltration we saw from the Israelis.

29:14But I think what we're going to see is the Iranians using more and more of these sort of, you know, what you're describing as these crude tactics, but they do have an impact, a psychological impact as well on a population. After our investigation, David, the channel that was recruiting people on Telegram, it was taken down. Within a few hours of our report coming out, it was taken down. And the following day, many in Israel got text messages that were saying that it was the Iranian intelligence and calling on people to contact Iranian missions in different countries to help them. And it's about, you know, it's about their future, they said.

30:04So you can imagine the kind of psychological impact that has. Sometimes it doesn't take much, whether it's this online recruitment, sending these text messages, the hacking, Iranian hacking groups and what they have been able to obtain from inside Israel, from Israeli officials as well over the past year or so. So it's definitely had an impact, you know, speaking with Israelis, they're really good at these sort of psyops, right? And they have this impact on a society, really. Yeah, I mean, so much so that the Israelis, I think it was their sort of public diplomacy initiative, had partnered with Shin Bet, the internal security service, to run a campaign that was, I think it was titled like, Easy Money, Heavy Price, to try to get the word out about this, because it had gotten so prevalent.

30:56I mean, because obviously the number of indictments, I think there have been 60 or so in Israel, is the tip of the iceberg, right, for the number of people in the society who have been contacted and maybe in some cases convinced to do some amount of work for Iranian intelligence in a winning or unwitting fashion. We used to talk at the agency about, you know, high CI, counterintelligence threat environments. And it was kind of, when I was in, it was like a very geographically bounded conversation. And it's totally changed now because you don't have to go to Iran. You don't have to go to a place where you have a lot of Iranian intelligence officers or Iranian militia or anything like that to be contacted by the Iranian intelligence services.

31:44You could be sitting in London on Telegram, and you can be recruited to do things that are very useful for them. And you're the one, as we're seeing, that bears the entire burden and cost of this. They don't care if you get caught. They'll just move on to the next person. So it is very crude but efficient, I guess. In many cases, people don't necessarily know in some of these cases that it is the Iranian intelligence doing this, right? It can either be people being recruited, you know, openly by these groups calling themselves Iranian intelligence, or at the same time, you know, you're just looking for quick money, go firebomb a synagogue in London and we'll pay you this much, right?

32:30You know, this building, this address. And it's just I mean, you look at it, I think this is a new reality that we're going to be facing. This is a whole different threat level that I think is going to be very, very challenging for governments around the world and security services to try and contain and control. Yeah, absolutely. And Juman, I wanted to ask, because I know you're in Amman, Jordan right now. What's the view from Amman when we look at Iran? And it doesn't necessarily have to be connected to this intelligence story we've been talking about, but just even more broadly as we look at the conflict in Iran and the possibility that it could restart.