The revelation that ASIO has identified Iran as being behind at least two of the antisemitic attacks seen in Australia since October 7, 2023 has both shone a new light on the Iranian regime’s activities in Australia, and put the issue of the nature of antisemitism in this country in new territory.
What Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has called ASIO’s “deeply disturbing conclusion” is that the Iranian government was involved in these “extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil”, identified as the activities of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
IRGC’s long tentacles
The IRGC is the group responsible for both internal security in Iran and for the international “security” operations of the regime and has long been known to have tentacles that spread wide around the globe.
In Australia in recent years, it has been seen to be mostly active against the Iranian diaspora. A Senate select committee two years ago received submissions from Iranian Australians concerned for their safety and reporting intimidation and harassment.
That harassment had escalated in the wake of the death in Iran in 2022 of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, allegedly at the hands of Iran’s religious police in September, which triggered mass protests across the country.
Then Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil promised not to let diaspora communities become foreign interference targets, after revealing ASIO had disrupted an Iranian government operation on Australia soil, targeting an Australian-Iranian critic of the regime in Tehran.
In a statement at the time, the Iranian embassy strongly rejected O’Neil’s allegations and claimed Tehran was committed to the “fundamental principle” of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries.
“Regrettably, these accusations, which have been made without providing evidence, show the effect of the baseless claims of some foreign countries regarding Iran’s interference in other countries,” the statement said.
“Making such claims without the least consultation is not a sign of honesty and goodwill. Accusing without examining the valid answer is against the axioms of law, logic and good faith.”
‘We’ve seen plot after plot’
The uncovering of the IRGC’s role in the wave of antisemitic attacks in Australia last year takes our understanding of its operations in our country into a new direction but one that is familiar from what has happened overseas.
In delivering his updated threat assessment in October last year, the director-general of MI5, Ken McCallum, noted that since the killing of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini in 2022 “we’ve seen plot after plot here in the UK, at an unprecedented pace and scale”.
McCallum said since the beginning of 2022 there had been 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.
In echoes of what ASIO director general Mike Burgess told a Canberra press conference today, McCallum said that “like the Russian services, Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies — from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks”.
Sources who have worked in Iran or in the intelligence space say that most Iranian embassies around the world have IRGC operatives in them, though the Australian government and ASIO say that the embassy in Canberra was not involved in these particular incidents.
But, the sources say, it is a similar modus operandi around the world: using criminal networks and obscured links that give the regime “plausible deniability” of their involvement in subversive activities.