With the help of the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies, Mexican authorities thwarted an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to Mexico. On Friday, the US and Israeli officials accused Iran of plotting to kill Einat Kranz-Neiger, with Mexican authorities denying any knowledge of such a plot.The purported assassination attempt came as tensions soared between Israel and Iran, which have each attacked the other’s territory.Israel said Mexican authorities had intervened to stop the attempt, but Mexico’s foreign ministry later said it had “received no information” on the alleged incident.Without naming the United States or Israel, Mexico’s Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection, which oversees intelligence, said it was open to “respectful and coordinated cooperation, always within the framework of national sovereignty, with all security agencies that request it.”When asked by Mexican media about the conflicting statements, Kranz-Neiger said she was “unaware of the reasons” of Mexico’s denial. “Those who acted to neutralise this threat were the Mexican security and intelligence authorities,” she told Radio Formula, AFP reported.Iran’s embassy in Mexico meanwhile called the alleged plot “a great big lie.” The objective “is to damage the friendly and historic relations between both countries (Mexico and Iran), which we categorically reject,” the embassy in Mexico posted on X.“The accusation regarding an alleged attempt by Iran to assassinate the Israeli regime’s ambassador in Mexico is a media invention, a great big lie, whose objective is to damage the friendly and historical relations between both countries (Mexico and Iran), which we categorically reject,” the embassy said in Iranian language and quoted as per X translations.
A US official said the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force initiated the plot in late 2024 and that it was disrupted this year. The plot allegedly included recruiting operatives out of Iran’s embassy in Venezuela, whose leftist president, Nicolas Maduro, has a tactical alliance with Tehran.“This is just the latest in a long history of Iran’s global lethal targeting of diplomats, journalists, dissidents and anyone who disagrees with them, something that should deeply worry every country where there is an Iranian presence,” the US official said on condition of anonymity. The official did not provide detailed evidence or say how the plot was contained.The alleged plot would have taken place after Israel’s April 1-2024 attack on the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, then a close ally of Tehran. The attack killed several top Revolutionary Guards officers and prompted vows of revenge by Tehran, which fired missiles and drones against Israel.A year later Israel carried out a much more extensive bombing campaign in Iran, which killed more than 1,000 people. The United States, Israel’s main ally, joined by bombing key sites of Iran’s contested nuclear programme.Iran’s cleric-run state has been a critical supporter of Hamas, the armed Palestinian militant group in Gaza that carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7-2023. Israel responded with a relentless campaign that has left most of Gaza in rubble and expanded its military offensive across the region, hitting Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar and Yemen.Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador over what it said was Iranian involvement in two arson attacks against a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher restaurant in Sydney.Latin America is not a stranger to violence linked to the Middle East. A bombing at a Jewish centre in 1994 in Buenos Aires killed 85 people, with Argentina and Israel saying it was carried out by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah at the request of Iran.Iran remains home to a historic Jewish community despite the hostility to Israel by the cleric-run govt that took power with the 1979 Islamic revolution.
