WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexican authorities with assistance from the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies thwarted an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to Mexico, Israeli and U.S. officials said Friday.
The plot to kill Ambassador Einat Kranz Neiger is alleged to have been hatched at the end of last year and remained active through the middle of this year, when it was disrupted, the U.S. officials said.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the intelligence, said the plot was “contained” and does not pose a current threat.
They did not offer details on how the plot was discovered or broken up. Iran’s mission to the U.N. said it had no comment.
“We thank the security and law enforcement services in Mexico for thwarting a terrorist network directed by Iran that sought to attack Israel’s ambassador in Mexico,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “The Israeli security and intelligence community will continue to work tirelessly, in full cooperation with security and intelligence agencies around the world, to thwart terrorist threats from Iran and its proxies against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide.”
According to intelligence documents from one of the U.S. officials, an officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps named Hasan Izadi, who also goes by the name Masood Rahnema, initiated the plot along with other Iranian officials while serving as an aide to Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela.
The United States has long accused Iran of seeking to assassinate current and former U.S. officials as well as Israelis, including on U.S. soil.
Mexico’s Foreign Affairs and Security ministries did not respond to requests for comment.
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AP writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations and Fabiola Sánchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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