Germany: Muslim migrant arrested ‘under strong suspicion’ of spying for Iran, planning attacks on Jews

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been a longtime threat to free societies across the globe. According to FBI, threats include:

espionage and foreign influence operations, cyber attacks, sanctions evasion, and illicit procurement of sensitive technology to support Iran’s military capability and nuclear program……The Iranian regime has also exported its repression through its harassment and lethal targeting of Iranian dissidents worldwide, including Americans living in the United States.

The US Department of State has also reported:

As in past years, the Iranian government continued supporting terrorist plots or associated activities targeting Iranian dissidents. In recent years, Albania, Belgium, and the Netherlands have all either arrested or expelled Iranian government officials implicated in various terrorist plots in their respective territories. Denmark similarly recalled its ambassador from Tehran after learning of an Iran-backed plot to kill an Iranian dissident in Denmark. In 2021, the United States disrupted an Iranian intelligence network plot to kidnap Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American journalist and human rights advocate living in Brooklyn, New York, from within the United States.

The US National Counter-terrorism Center warns:

The IRGC-QF has plotted and conducted covert operations worldwide, and it provides guidance, training, funds, and weapons to partners and proxies, primarily Shia militants in the Middle East. These partners and proxies allow the IRGC-QF to maintain military capability in multiple theaters while having a pretense to deny involvement in operations……Based in Iran; the IRGC-QF has conducted operations primarily in Iraq and Syria but also operates globally, including in the United States

Last year, the European Parliament addressed Iran’s “use of criminal networks as terrorist proxies in Europe,” and said that this “poses a grave threat” to Europe’s “internal security.” The Swedish Security Service also confirmed last year that “the Iranian regime has been using criminal networks in Sweden to carry out violent acts against other states, groups, or individuals in Sweden…Similar reports have been made in several other European countries.”

Iran’s terror network is global. The report below that Afghan-Danish national Ali S. was arrested “under strong suspicion of  having worked for a secret service of a foreign power,” Iran, is nothing new. A report emerged in December that Iran was recruiting minors to attack Jewish targets across Europe. In February, the European Jewish Congress reported that Iran’s proxies were recruiting “criminals and minors to threaten Israelis and Jews in Sweden.”

As Iran’s nuclear threat grew, so did the threat of its proxies abroad, especially to Jews and Iranian dissidents.

“Iranian spy arrested after spying on German Jewish targets for Quds Force handler,” by Mathilda Heller, Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2025:

An Iranian spy who was likely planning attacks on Jewish people in Germany has been arrested after a lengthy multi-national intelligence operation.

German Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel announced last week that Afghan-Danish national Ali S., 53, had been arrested under strong suspicion of “having worked for a secret service of a foreign power.”

The arrest warrant was issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland on June 26, in collaboration with officers of Politiets Efterretningstjeneste (PET) in Denmark. He was subsequently extradited from Denmark to Germany.

Ali S. is charged with spying on Jewish locations and Jewish people in Berlin in order to collect information for Iranian intelligence services. This included spying on three targets in June 2025, “presumably to prepare further intelligence operations in Germany, possibly leading to attacks against Jewish targets.”
Danish intelligence officers intercepted online messages between him and a Quds Force officer and alerted German authorities. Germany then began surveillance of Ali S., including bugging his house in Aarhus.

Bild – citing investigative sources – reported that Ali S. photographed at least 10 sites in Germany in 2025, including the German Israeli Society, an Israeli restaurant in Berlin-Schöneberg, a kosher supermarket near Kurfürstendamm, and the office of the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Josef Schuster….