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IranJuly 30 2025, 4:22 am

Iran Plotted Belgian MP Abduction After Push to Label IRGC Terror Group

Iran’s regime alleged­ly tar­get­ed a Bel­gian MP as retal­i­a­tion for her polit­i­cal stance, under­scor­ing grow­ing con­cerns about Iran­ian transna­tion­al repres­sion. On 28 July 2025, Iran Inter­na­tion­al report­ed that Darya Safai, a Bel­gian law­mak­er of Iran­ian descent, had been warned by Bel­gian police of an Iran­ian plot to abduct her via Turkey, fol­low­ing her suc­cess­ful push to have the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) des­ig­nat­ed a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion in Bel­gium. The arti­cle begins:

A Bel­gian law­mak­er of Iran­ian descent said the Euro­pean coun­try’s police warned her of an Iran­ian plot to abduct her via Turkey after she backed label­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guards a ter­ror­ist group. “Today, the Bel­gian police and secu­ri­ty ser­vices con­tact­ed me regard­ing an alarm­ing sit­u­a­tion con­cern­ing my safe­ty,” Darya Safai said on her X account. “They had received wor­ry­ing infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ing that the Islam­ic regime in Iran wants to kid­nap me and take me to Tehran via Turkey,” she said, adding that she has been advised against vis­it­ing Turkey. Iran has pre­vi­ous­ly been accused of involve­ment in the kid­nap­ping and killing of for­eign nation­als in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, accord­ing to Emi­rati and West­ern offi­cials. In 2020, Ger­man-Iran­ian dis­si­dent Jamshid Sharmahd was kid­napped by Iran­ian oper­a­tives from Dubai and forcibly tak­en to Iran via Oman. He was sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed in what Amnesty called a “gross­ly unfair tri­al” in 2023. Iran also kid­napped dis­si­dent jour­nal­ist Rouhol­lah Zam from Iraq after lur­ing him to leave Paris for the Arab coun­try in Sep­tem­ber 2019. He was lat­er sen­tenced to death and exe­cut­ed in Iran one year later.

Read more: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202507285628

Key Points

  • Bel­gian MP Darya Safai was warned by nation­al author­i­ties of an Iran­ian plot to abduct her, alleged­ly in retal­i­a­tion for her res­o­lu­tion to list the IRGC as a ter­ror­ist group.

  • The alleged plot report­ed­ly involved abduc­tion via Turkey, with Safai advised to avoid trav­el there due to secu­ri­ty risks.

  • Iran has a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of tar­get­ing dis­si­dents and crit­ics abroad, includ­ing kid­nap­pings and assas­si­na­tions attrib­uted to Iran­ian intel­li­gence services.

  • The inci­dent has inten­si­fied calls for Euro­pean coun­tries to con­front Iran’s extrater­ri­to­r­i­al repres­sion and con­sid­er fur­ther sanc­tions against the IRGC and Iran­ian officials.

IRGC Threats in Europe—Targeting Journalists, Dissidents, and Allies

Iran’s regime is expand­ing its oper­a­tional reach with­in Europe, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing polit­i­cal and media oppo­nents in a cam­paign that lever­ages cyber offen­sives, sur­ro­gate influ­ence net­works, and clan­des­tine polit­i­cal oper­a­tions. Iran­ian cyber actors have orches­trat­ed large-scale dig­i­tal assaults against oppo­si­tion media, com­pro­mis­ing sen­si­tive data and poten­tial­ly enabling fur­ther harass­ment or intel­li­gence-gath­er­ing against Iran­ian dis­si­dents and jour­nal­ists in the dias­po­ra. Con­cur­rent­ly, ana­lysts have detect­ed Iran­ian-linked bot net­works manip­u­lat­ing pub­lic opin­ion on con­tentious Euro­pean polit­i­cal issues, reflect­ing Tehran’s bid to exploit West­ern social divi­sions and ampli­fy nar­ra­tives that under­mine Euro­pean cohesion.

Broad­er geopo­lit­i­cal shifts, such as the ero­sion of democ­ra­cy in Geor­gia, pro­vide strate­gic open­ings for Iran to deep­en alliances with oth­er author­i­tar­i­an pow­ers and project influ­ence into East­ern Europe. These activ­i­ties are con­sis­tent with a pat­tern of Iran­ian state-backed threats against jour­nal­ists, dis­si­dents, and polit­i­cal fig­ures resid­ing in Europe—cases cor­rob­o­rat­ed by inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions into assas­si­na­tion attempts, kid­nap plots, and cyber­at­tacks tar­get­ing crit­ics abroad.

Exter­nal references:

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.

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