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Report: Iran has planned an attack against targets of the Emirates in Africa
The New York Times reported that Ethiopia's operation against a cell that was exposed in its territory and also wanted to operate in neighboring Sudan was an Iranian operation aimed at avenging the assassination of Fahrizadeh and Suleimani.
The leader of the thwarted attack was arrested in Sweden, in intelligence cooperation.
Tehran: "Unsubstantiated claims of the Zionist regime"
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Iran
Ethiopia
United Arab Emirates
News agencies
Monday, 15 February 2021, 13:29
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In the video: An Iranian diplomat who planned an attack against opponents of a regime sentenced to 20 years in prison in Belgium (Photo: Reuters)
Ethiopia has uncovered an Iranian cell that planned terrorist attacks against the United Arab Emirates' missions in the country and neighboring Sudan, the New York Times reported Monday.
Earlier this month, Addis Ababa announced it had arrested 15 suspects, with weapons and explosives, who were planning to wreak havoc in the capital.
However, the country did not specify who was behind the thwarted plan, but hinted at it when it announced a 16-year-old suspect, a man named Ahmed Ismail who was arrested in Sweden in cooperation between intelligence services "from Africa, Asia and Europe".
According to American and Israeli sources, Iranian intelligence activated a dormant cell in Addis Ababa in the fall, which was also supposed to gather intelligence on the US and Israeli embassies.
Sources said it was part of a wider effort to locate "soft targets" in African countries, where Tehran could avenge the assassinations of nuclear scientist Muhsin Fahrizadeh and Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani.
Admiral Heidi Kay Berg, intelligence director at the Pentagon's Africa Command, said that according to Western intelligence sources, Iran is behind the cell of the 15 detainees in Ethiopia and behind the "brain of the thwarted plot," Ismail, who was arrested in Sweden.
"Ethiopia and Sweden have cooperated in thwarting the plot," Admiral Berg said in a statement.
Iran denies the publication, which comes at a sensitive time when it is trying to persuade President Joe Biden's administration to return to the nuclear deal and remove sanctions from it.
"These baseless mistakes were made only by the malicious media of the Zionist regime," said a spokeswoman for the Iranian embassy in Addis Ababa.
"Neither Ethiopia nor the Emirates have said anything about Iranian intervention in these matters."
Iran was furious at the UAE after normalizing its relations with Israel as part of the Abrahamic agreements reached by the Trump administration in its final months.
The Emirates did not publicly address the issue.
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Ethiopia is trying to avoid a public diplomatic confrontation.
African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa (Photo: Reuters)
It is not clear why Ethiopia did not mention Iran in its announcement of thwarting the attack, but some diplomats said the country, which houses the headquarters of the African Union, is trying to avoid a public diplomatic confrontation on sensitive issues involving the major powers.
Despite this, Ethiopia's national intelligence and security services said a second group of suspects planned to attack the Emirates' embassy in the Sudanese capital.
The New York Times said a Sudanese official had confirmed this.
According to a senior US security official, the arrests in Ethiopia are linked to Iran's failed attempt to assassinate the United States ambassador to South Africa last year.
The New York Times said officials spoke anonymously due to diplomatic and intelligence sensitivity, noting that many details are still vague.
None of the 15 suspects arrested in Ethiopia have been officially prosecuted so far, and only two of them have been identified.
Israeli sources told the newspaper that only three of them may have been Iranian activists, while the others were caught on the way.
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While Admiral Berg has confirmed some details about Iranian involvement in the affair, other military and diplomatic sources in Washington have refused to discuss it.
On the other hand, Israeli officials stressed the plan, which was thwarted as further proof that Iran should not be trusted, in light of the fear of a return to the nuclear agreement.
Tehran continues to warn that they have not yet avenged the assassination of Fhrizadh, action attributed to the institution, and Suleiman was killed in a US drone attack on January last year.
So far, Iran settled for launching rockets at US forces in Iraq days after the assassination of senior general, but declares the back
Experts estimate
that this was not her last
word.Experts estimated that the Emirate of Emirates in Ethiopia was seen as a convenient target for Iran since Addis Ababa was preoccupied with the war that has been raging since November in the northern province of Tigray.
The relationship is tightening.
Netanyahu and the Ethiopian Prime Minister in Jerusalem, 2019 (Photo: GettyImages, MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)
In recent years, Iran has lost its influence over the strategic Horn of Africa region, after years of close relations with former Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir and with Eritrea, which have reportedly led Israel to attack Iranian weapons convoys making their way from Sudan to the Gaza Strip.
Iran's place in the region was taken by the Emirates, which helped mediate the peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and now owns battleships in Eritrean ports that were once an Iranian anchorage. Israel also sent a team of UAV pilots to Ethiopia to help it destroy the locust swarms that destroyed the country's fields, following a phone call last November between Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmad and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A few weeks later, he reportedly met Mossad chief Yossi Cohen with his counterpart in Ethiopia to discuss the "operations against terrorism." Israeli intelligence sources cited by the New York Times said that they transmit from time to time information to friendly countries on the continent on Iranian activity in their territories, such as Kenya.
Frzin Nadim, an expert on Iran at the Washington Institute For Middle East policy, she said Iran may have wanted to send a message to the Biden administration that "until they quickly reach an agreement with Iran, this is what they will get: a dangerous neighborhood."
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