Mossad admits cooperating with MKO over anti-Iran plot
Israel's spy agency Mossad has openly acknowledged that it cooperated with the MKO terror group over a plan to implicate the Islamic Republic in a alleged bombing plot in Paris.
Mossad said it had worked with its Belgian, French and German counterparts to uncover an alleged cell that was planning to bomb a June 30 MKO rally in the French capital, Israeli website Hadashat reported on Thursday.
According to the report, an Iranian based in the Austrian capital of Vienna as well as two Belgian nationals and another individual in Paris were arrested by police.
Iran has said it has evidence showing those allegedly arrested in Belgium are MKO members and announced readiness to fully cooperate on bringing all aspects of the "pre-planned scenario" to light.
The alleged arrests coincided with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Switzerland and Austria to discuss the fate of the 2015 nuclear deal after Washington's withdrawal from the agreement.
In a video clip aired Tuesday by Israeli television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel was responsible for US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal which the EU is trying to preserve.
Iran has called the alleged bombing plan a "sinister false flag ploy," timed to overshadow President Rouhani’s visit to Europe.
"How convenient: Just as we embark on a presidential visit to Europe, an alleged Iranian operation and its 'plotters' arrested," Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif said last month.
Despite claims of the plot, the MKO event went ahead as planned and was attended by some of the former US, European and Saudi officials, including former Saudi spy chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal.
Mossad's acknowledgment of a collusion puts Israel next to Saudi Arabia which has been collaborating with the MKO and providing it with financial support for decades.
According to the British daily The Guardian, about 4,000 people attended the rally, many of them refugees and young eastern Europeans who had been bussed in for a weekend trip to Paris.
Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was one of 33 senior US officials and military brass at this year’s conference.
The MKO was once listed as a terrorist organization in the US and Europe and is still widely viewed as a Marxist cult built around the personality of its leader, Maryam Rajavi.
The group is widely detested for collaborating with the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during his war on Iran in the 1980s and killing as many as 12,000 Iranians in a violent campaign of assassinations and bombings.
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