Georgian security services on Tuesday thwarted an Iranian attempt to assassinate an Israeli businessman living in Tbilisi. According to Israeli media, the plot was part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to target Israeli citizens living abroad.
Georgia’s State Security Service (SSSG) announced that people with Pakistani and dual Iranian-Georgian citizenship were apprehended as part of a group sent by the IRGC to kill an Israeli citizen, who has been identified as Itzik Moshe. The agency said the organisers of the attack, who are living abroad, have been also identified, including an Iranian citizen who ordered the attack.
According to the SSSG, the Pakistani citizen was supposed to assassinate Moshe and “was given the necessary instruction and information about the target.” He entered Georgia via an unnamed “third country” and was then provided with a rented apartment, possibly by agents working for Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian-Georgian citizens detained by the police delivered weapons to the Pakistani citizen via secret hideouts arranged in Tbilisi.
This is highly significant: the foiled attack against Israeli businessman Itzik Moshe by #Iran's IRGC's Quds Force in #Georgia reportedly involved **a Pakistani team affiliated with #AlQaeda.** Would note the presence of senior AQ operatives in Tehran.https://t.co/x6C6rw1XNI
— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) November 15, 2022
“As a result of investigative actions and searches conducted against persons with dual Iranian-Georgian citizenship, firearms and ammunition were seized, as well as conspiratorial phones, in which information showing the preparation of killing, the location of hiding places and other revealing evidences were found,” the security service said.
The SSSG mentioned that the investigation is ongoing and “other persons participating in and facilitating the crime are being detected and identified.”
According to the Times of Israel (TOI), the IRGC’s Quds Force, which deals with the group’s foreign activities, was behind the operation. The news site also mentioned that the Pakistani citizen was affiliated with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Israeli officials told the outlet that “this isn’t the first time an attempt to carry out a terror attack on Georgian soil under Iranian orders has been revealed.”
* Iran planned several terrorist attacks in Georgia in 2021-2022, and this is not the first time Itzik Moshe was targeted. Among those working on the attempts was Shahram Poursafi who was charged with attempting to murder former US national security adviser John Bolton 3/3
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) November 15, 2022
Israel has not yet officially commented on the Iranian plot.
Crucially, this was not the first time Iran has sought to attack Israeli targets.
In 2012, Georgian security forces defused a bomb planted under the vehicle of an Israeli embassy official by Iranian agents.
Similarly, Israeli and Cypriot agents foiled an assassination attempt by the IRGC on Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi in Nicosia last year. ThenIsraeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called it “an act of terror orchestrated by Iran.”
In June, Israeli and Turkish security forces thwarted multiple attempts by Iranian agents to kidnap or kill Israeli citizens vacationing in Turkey and issued numerous travel warnings for citizens visiting Turkey.
Tehran has stepped up efforts to assassinate Israeli citizens after Quds Force colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei was shot dead in Tehran by two gunmen on a motorcycle in May. While Iran initially suspected the hand of either the United States or Israel, it later blamed Israel for the murder and promised to retaliate. Days after Khodaei’s assassination, two officers working in the IRGC’s aerospace and ballistic missile programmes were killed under mysterious circumstances near Tehran. Iran once again pinned the blame on Israel and the calls for revenge increased.
The latest tensions are part of a decades-long shadow war between Iran and Israel that has spanned continents, with the two rivals confronting each other in air, sea, and land. While Israel’s modus operandi revolves around assassinating Iranian scientists and military officials, Iran has focused on arming militias in Israel’s neighbours.