Iran Suspected of Scouting Jewish Targets in Europe
German authorities say a Danish national arrested last week is suspected of surveilling potential targets in Berlin
- German authorities arrested a man suspected of spying on Jewish targets in Berlin for Iran.
- The suspect, a Danish national, allegedly gathered information on Jewish community members and buildings.
- The arrest raises concerns that Iran may be planning attacks abroad amid tensions with Israel and the U.S.
BERLIN—Iran is suspected of collecting information on Jewish targets in Berlin to prepare for possible attacks, German authorities said Tuesday following the arrest of an alleged spy working for Tehran.
The man, a Danish national identified as Ali S., was detained by Danish agents last week on the request of German authorities and is awaiting extradition to Germany, the general prosecutor’s office said.
In early 2025, Ali S. was ordered by an Iranian intelligence service to gather information about Berlin’s Jewish community and prominent Jewish personalities, the prosecutor’s office said.
Ali S. is then thought to have driven to Berlin and taken photographs of at least three buildings, including the seat of the German-Israeli Society and another where Josef Schuster, the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, had occasionally resided, according to a German official.
The official said Ali S., a Danish national of Afghan origin, was believed to have acted under the instructions of the Quds Force, an elite section of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is mainly responsible for foreign operations.
The official said the investigation was still in an early phase and that it was unclear whether the surveillance would have led to an attack.
The Islamic Republic and its proxies in the Middle East have a long history of targeting domestic opponents, Jewish people and Israeli citizens around the world, going back to the years following the 1979 revolution that toppled the pro-Western Iranian monarchy.
Last week’s arrest could rekindle fears that a militarily weakened Tehran, destabilized by Israeli and U.S. strikes at home, could be turning to terrorism overseas to hit back at its enemies. The case bears some similarity to earlier Iranian intelligence operations in Germany.
In 2017, a Pakistani national was jailed for more than four years for gathering information about Reinhold Robbe, a center-left politician and former chairman of the German-Israeli Society, which authorities thought might have in preparation for an attack.
“The judge…established in his verdict that the agents had explored all possibilities to kidnap me—or worse,” Robbe told the Tagesspiegel daily recently. “I didn’t notice a thing.”
In late 2023, a court found a German-Iranian man guilty of planning to firebomb a synagogue in the city of Düsseldorf and said he had been encouraged to do so by contacts within Iran.