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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1y7v7ztAx1E”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Iran: The Untold Story \u2013 Part Two<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

May 2, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last summer, crowds of Iranian advocacy groups and like-minded individuals gathered in Paris for the annual meeting of the \u201cFree Iran\u201d movement, calling for the end of Iran\u2019s brutal regime.<\/p>\n

Prominent US politicians spoke, Republicans and Democrats alike, including former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.<\/p>\n

Gov. Richardson: \u201cAre you ready for regime change in Iran?\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in Belgium, a plot to attack the high-profile rally unravels. Police and bomb techs surround the car of a couple accused of working with an Iranian diplomat to bomb the Paris demonstration.<\/p>\n

Belgian Federal Prosecutor Buck Sexton: \u201cWe are certain it was their intention to hurt people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suspects possessed enough explosives to kill and maim.<\/p>\n

Iran expert and former US Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield was at the Paris rally. He says Iran was behind the foiled attack as French, German and Belgian authorities all confirmed.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Bloomfield: \u201cI wonder whether there\u2019s a bureaucratic faction in the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, MOIS, that simply does this for a living. They have people planted in foreign capitals. They had an operation that may have been last minute, but it may have been underway for a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Paris plot confirms why the US classifies Iran as the world\u2019s leading state sponsor of terror.<\/p>\n

Dozens of Iranian dissidents and foreign nationals have been the target of its hit squads and bombs for decades.<\/p>\n

April 1990, Switzerland. Iranian assassins gun down a former UN diplomat and brother of the leader of the main Iranian opposition group.<\/p>\n

August 1991, France. Iranian hit men assassinate Iran\u2019s last prime minister before the Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n

February 1996, Turkey. Iranian agents kill a senior member of the Iranian resistance, who was protecting rights of Iranian women.<\/p>\n

Last year, the terror plots increased.<\/p>\n

March 2018, Albania. Iranian agents plan to bomb a gathering of Iranian opposition members, where former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was speaking. Albanian police thwart the attack and expel Iran\u2019s ambassador.<\/p>\n

And August 2018, Washington. The Justice Department indicts two Iranian-Americans for acting as covert agents for Iran\u2013spying on Jewish centers in Chicago and surveilling Iranian opposition members in D.C. for a possible attack.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Bloomfield says the planned Paris attack, alone, reveals the violence of an increasingly isolated and paranoid regime.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Bloomfield: \u201cHow do you explain trying to blow up a political rally, in the heart of Europe? How do you explain that and then still come to the United States and claim to be a peace-loving regime that\u2019s trying to become moderate and engage with the rest of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

Interview section:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 We\u2019re joined now by Struan Stevenson.\u00a0 He\u2019s a former member of the European Parliament for Scotland.\u00a0 Struan, thank you so much for being here.<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: Pleasure.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 So, you were at the Paris Free Iran rally last year.\u00a0 Did it frighten you to think that the crowd at that rally could very well have been bombed?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: Well, it\u2019s an appalling concept.\u00a0 There were over 100,000 people there\u2014men, women, children even, but there were dozens of leading politicians from all around the world.\u00a0 We had, you know, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Steven Harper, the former Prime Minister of Canada, amongst dozens of leading politicians.\u00a0 Anyone could have been killed.\u00a0 This could have been a huge atrocity on European soil.\u00a0 And the person arrested was a senior diplomat from the Iranian Embassy in Vienna, Asadollah Assadi.\u00a0 He is now awaiting trial, together with three other Iranians to whom he gave the bomb and instructed them to take it to Paris and detonate the bomb amongst this massive crowd of opposition\u2014NCRI, MEK supporters.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 So European police officials have undoubtedly and clearly put this on the Iranian state.\u00a0 Was it to send a specific message that this was targeted?\u00a0 And what was that message that the Iranian state, if they had been able to conduct this horrific attack, as you said, on a lot of innocent people, as well as senior level officials, what would the message have been?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: Well, you know, we know that Mike Pompeo has accused the Iranians of being the world\u2019s sponsors of terror, of being the godfathers of terror.\u00a0 They\u2019re involved in the sponsorship of proxy wars.\u00a0 They back Bashar al-Assad and Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Shia militia in Iraq.\u00a0 They spend billions of dollars which they deny to their own people by backing these proxy wars and by using the ministry of intelligence and security which is an offshoot of the IRGC as agents for spreading terror and bomb attacks around Europe.\u00a0 Actually, their embassies are used as quasi bomb factories and, you know, plotting centers for these assassination attempts.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON: Immediately after the arrests last year, the Iranian Foreign Minister came out publicly to state that maybe this was a false flag operation that somebody else perhaps put this in motion to make it look like something that the Iranian state would have conducted in order to besmirch the reputation of Iran such as it is, the Iranian regime.\u00a0 Is this a common refrain from the Iranians when they\u2019re caught like this?\u00a0 Is this a tactic that they\u2019ve tried before?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: He would say that, but it\u2019s like the iceberg being accused of plotting to sink the Titanic, you know?\u00a0 I mean this is like a ludicrous concept.\u00a0 And actually, the bomb attack was planned to take place days before the foreign minister from Iran, Zarif, went to Vienna, which is the embassy that sent one of its diplomats to, you know, sponsor the bomb attack.\u00a0 Incredible.\u00a0 It shows to me that the mullahs are panicking though.\u00a0 They know they\u2019re on their last legs.\u00a0 There is a tipping point going to be arrive shortly where the people of Iran will further [0:06:53] power and they\u2019re like a wounded beast and they\u2019re now resorting to violence and assassination attempts and bomb attacks.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 Struan, can you give us a sense of how widespread these efforts from the Iranian regime are to target opposition figures with terrorism, assassination, various plots around the world?\u00a0 Is this ongoing?\u00a0 Is this something that we need to be vigilant for going forward as well, or is the Iranian regime a little more careful because they\u2019ve been caught?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON:\u00a0 It is ongoing.\u00a0 I mean back in 1990, Kazam Rajavi, one of the leading NCRI people in Geneva, was assassinated and 13 Iranians, officials of the Iranian government, were named as the people who had been sent to Geneva to carry out that assassination.\u00a0 Two years later, there was a guy, a leading NCRI supporter assassinated in Istanbul.\u00a0 He was kidnapped, tortured to death, and later, one of the people responsible, one of the terrorists, was arrested and led the Turkish police to his unmarked grave where his body was exhumed, and he\u2019d been tortured to death.\u00a0 I mean these are commonplace, for years they have used their Ministry of Intelligence, MIOS, as a form of, you know, exporting terror and sponsoring terror around the world.\u00a0 And Albania, where there are now two and a half thousand Iranian supporters of the opposition, the Prime Minister, Edi Rama, expelled the Iranian Ambassador and the First Secretary from the Iranian Embassy in Albania, accusing them of undermining the security of his country, because they had been targeting attacks on the NCRI in Albania.\u00a0 It\u2019s happened even here in America where, you know, surveillance has been taking place with Iranians trying to track some of the leading NCRI figures here in Washington.\u00a0 So, you know, it\u2019s great that the Trump administration has now blacklisted the =<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 IRGC<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: = IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, but you\u2019ve got to remember that the MOIS was at one time part of the IRGC.\u00a0 It\u2019s now a separate entity.\u00a0 It should be added to the foreign terrorists list.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 What does the Iranian regime think of the main opposition group out there, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, or the MEK?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON:\u00a0 What does the regime think of =<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 What does the regime think of them?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: They\u2019re constitution says that any citizen of Iran who is caught supporting the MEK or the NCRI, it leads to the mandatory death sentence.\u00a0 It is seen as being in opposition to God, at war with God.\u00a0 And, you know, that\u2019s why atrocities on a massive scale have been perpetrated against the supporters of the NCRI.\u00a0 In 1988, 30,000 supporters of the NCRI were massacred.\u00a0 One of the biggest atrocities since the end of World War II.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 \u00a0Clearly, the Iranian government has concerns about these opposition groups around the world.\u00a0 That\u2019s why they target them with violence and terrorism.\u00a0 How hopeful are you that there will be a change going forward in Iran and that there will be a liberation from this mullahcracy, as some call it?<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: There is no way that the current regime is sustainable.\u00a0 They are still trying to spend billions backing all of these proxy wars around the Middle East, spending, you know, billions trying to demonize the opposition, the NCRI, and you know, sponsoring these terrorist attempts around the world.\u00a0 This is not sustainable.\u00a0 The people taking to the streets in all the towns and cities in Iran for the past 16 months, many of them are shouting, \u201cWhat about us?\u00a0 Forget Syria, forget Hezbollah.\u00a0 What about us?\u00a0 Pay our wages.\u00a0 Help us to feed our families.\u201d\u00a0 I mean the economy is collapsing in Iran.\u00a0 The mullahs are on their last legs, and the tipping point is about to be reached where they will be swept from power.<\/p>\n

BUCK SEXTON:\u00a0 Struan Stevenson, thank you so much for joining us.\u00a0 We appreciate it.<\/p>\n

STEVENSON: Thank you.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1y7v7ztAx1E\"][vc_column_text] Iran: The Untold Story \u2013 Part Two May 2, 2019 Last summer, crowds of Iranian advocacy groups and like-minded individuals gathered in Paris for the annual meeting of…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nEpisode 2 - Iran Terrorism - IAC Virginia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/iac-va.org\/iran-the-untold-story-part-two\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Episode 2 - 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