Iran’s first minister of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) admitted to overseeing assassinations of opposition figures abroad, revealing new details about Tehran's decades-long campaign of targeted killings.
In an interview with the Tehran-based news website Didban Iran, Mohsen Rafiqdoust said he personally oversaw operations against exiled dissidents, including former Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, military officials Gholam-Ali Oveissi and Shahriar Shafiq, and dissident artist Fereydoun Farrokhzad.
“The Basque separatist group in Spain carried out these assassinations for us. We paid them, and they conducted the killings on our behalf,” Rafiqdoust said.
He recounted his role in the 1991 assassination of Bakhtiar in Paris, saying he supervised Anis Naccache, a Lebanese operative who had previously attempted to kill Bakhtiar in 1980 but failed.
According to Rafiqdoust, he traveled to France to negotiate Naccache’s release, warning French officials: “If after two weeks he is not freed and one of your embassies is bombed or a plane hijacked, don’t complain.”
Naccache himself had previously said in a 2008 interview with the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency that Iran’s then Leader Ruhollah Khomeini personally approved the order to kill Bakhtiar.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Court issued his death sentence, and Khomeini endorsed it. I told the IRGC members that I had operational experience and would carry it out,” Naccache said.
The Iranian government has been implicated in multiple assassinations over the past four decades. In 1984, the Chief Commander of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces Gholam-Ali Oveissi and his brother were shot dead in Paris.
The Lebanese group Islamic Jihad, later linked to Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group’s leader, Imad Mughniyeh, played a role in several international terrorist operations, including the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut and attacks against Israeli targets in Argentina.
Iran’s campaign of assassinations began in 1979 with the killing of Iranian Imperial Navy Captain Shahriar Shafiq in Paris and has continued for decades.
A report published in December by the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center documented 862 extrajudicial executions and 124 attempted kidnappings or assassinations by the Iranian state.
The campaign has escalated in recent years. A Reuters investigation in 2024, citing court documents and statements from Western governments, reported that Iran had been involved in at least 33 assassination or kidnapping attempts since 2020.
Iran’s reach has extended to the United States. Washington has accused Tehran of orchestrating at least five assassination plots on American soil since 2020.
Journalist and activist Masih Alinejad was among those targeted, with US authorities uncovering Iranian-backed attempts to kill her through hired operatives.
In one of the most high-profile cases, Iranian security forces abducted journalist Ruhollah Zam in Iraq and transferred him to Iran, where he was executed in 2020.
Similarly, dissident Jamshid Sharmahd was kidnapped in the UAE and later executed in Iran in 2024.
Iran’s targets have not been limited to its own dissidents. The US Department of Justice recently disclosed details of an Iranian plot to assassinate President Donald Trump before the 2024 election.
A federal indictment in Manhattan named Farhad Shakari, a 51-year-old Iranian national, as the lead operative, along with two American accomplices.
The US government has long designated Iran as a leading state sponsor of terrorism, imposing extensive sanctions in response to its activities.
It is not only Iranian dissidents that have been the targets of Iranian plots. The head of Israel's Mossad, David Barnea, said in 2023 that in the last year, there had been 27 plots foiled targeting Israelis in Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America.
In Israel alone during 2024, Iran-backed plots soared by 400% with 13 cases and 27 Israelis indicted.
The Director General of the UK's MI5 also recently stated that since the start of 2022 the UK has responded to 20 Iran-backed plots, presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents, directly blaming the IRGC.
"The Iranian Intelligence Services, which include the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, or MOIS, direct this damaging activity," a statement earlier this month said.
"But often, rather than working directly on UK shores, they use criminal proxies to do their bidding. This helps to obfuscate their involvement, while they sit safely ensconced in Tehran."
MI5 said that Iran is targeting dissidents, media organizations and journalists reporting on the government's "violent oppression".
It also acknowledged the danger posed to Jews and Israelis abroad.
"It is also no secret that there is a long-standing pattern of targeting Jewish and Israeli people internationally by the Iranian Intelligence Services," added the statement. It is clear that these plots are a conscious strategy of the Iranian regime to stifle criticism through intimidation and fear."
