The botched terrorist attack against a Jewish restaurant and synagogue in Athens, Greece in March 2023 was orchestrated by Iran as part of the war on Israel, according to a Reuters investigative report.
A Pakistani man named Sayed Fakhar Abbas who lives in Iran recruited a Pakistani acquaintance who resides in Greece and directed him to attack the site. The restaurant and synagogue building is located in the Psyrrι area in downtown Athens, according to documents submitted to judicial authorities.
Abbas told the man that he was working for a group that would pay some 15,000 euros per kill. In a January 2023 WhatsApp exchange detailed in the documents, the two men discussed whether to use explosives or arson in the attack.
Abbas told the Pakistani man to provide proof of casualties and strike in a way that would leave no room for suspicion from intelligence agencies.
Greek authorities arrested two Pakistanis for the attack in March 2023 last year, saying that the attack was directed from abroad and intended to cause human casualties. The two men face terrorism-related charges.
Greek authorities have gathered pages of evidence gathered during the pre-trial investigation. They include witness testimony, police statements and details of WhatsApp messages.
The evidence purport to show how Abbas groomed his contact, a Pakistani named Syed Irtaza Haider, as the two talked of life back home and plotting attacks.
Haider spoke to Reuters claiming that he deliberately delayed the attack hoping that he would get paid without harming anyone.
Assassinations and kidnappings part of Iran-Israel war
Israeli secret service Mossad, which assisted the Greek investigation, said the planned attack on the Athens Jewish restaurant and synagogue was orchestrated by Iran, as part of a multinational network operated from Tehran.
The Reuters investigation corroborates that the Athens attack appears to be linked to other Iran-orchestrated assassinations and kidnappings of Israelis in Europe and the United States. The Israeli government declined to comment on the case and other Mossad activities. Likewise, Iran refuses any allegation of involvement in attacks against Israelis.
However, Reuters investigation tallies at least two terrorist acts in Iran’s proxy war with Israel where non-Iranian nationals were used, both in the U.S. and Europe.
“Since 2020, Iran has dramatically intensified lethal plotting against former U.S. officials, Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests in the United States and abroad,” acting director Brett Holmgren of the National Counterterrorism Center, a U.S. intelligence-coordinating agency, told Reuters.
In 2023, Mossad director David Barnea said that over the previous year, Israeli intelligence had worked with international partners to disrupt 27 terrorist teams that tried to mount attacks abroad that were “orchestrated, masterminded, and directed by Iran.”
Reuters investigation says that there is a pattern of use of hired hit men in such plots in the Iran proxy war against Israeli targets. In the United States, there have been at least five alleged Iran-linked assassination or abduction cases brought by prosecutors since 2020. Three involved murder-for-hire plots.
