The tangled web of a failed terror plot

One of the two Pakistani nationals arrested for planning to bomb a Jewish restaurant in central Athens, which doubled as a cultural and religious center, has already admitted his part in the plan, Kathimerini understands.

The two will face an examining magistrate and a prosecutor Saturday.

The operation, code-named “Hyacinth,” which led to the arrests of the two suspects, was a joint operation of Greece’s National Intelligent Service (EYP) and the Hellenic Police’s counterterrorism unit; Israel acknowledged Tuesday the cooperation of its own intelligence agency, Mossad, in the operation, though not the extent of its involvement.

It turns out that the Athens operation, which would result in the first known foreign terror strike in Greece since 9/11, was not an isolated plot, but has to be seen in the context of the Israel-Iran rivalry.

The Athens operation, a plan to assassinate Israeli businessmen in Cyprus in 2021 and revelations of a plot to kill Israeli tourists in Istanbul in the summer of 2022, are all connected, Greek officials believe.

All these plots are seen as revenge for the assassinations of two notable Iranian officials, which Tehran accuses Israel of having perpetrated.

In November 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, widely regarded as the chief of Iran’s nuclear program, was assassinated by an autonomous, satellite-operated gun mounted on a truck. And in May 2022, Hassan Sayyad Khodaei, a colonel in Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was murdered outside his home by motorbike-riding gunmen. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi had vowed revenge for the latter’s assassination and Iran had called Fakhrizadeh’s death the result of “state terror.”

Kathimerini has been told that Mossad informed EYP in August 2022 of the plot to bomb a Jewish target in Athens.

Two months earlier, Turkey’s intelligence agency MIT and Mossad had coordinated to evacuate Israeli tourists from Istanbul, based on information about terrorist strikes against them. Israel had issued a warning on June 13 to all Israelis vacationing in Turkey of likely strikes at seaside resorts.

The individual who had suggested the Athens target to the two arrested suspects is another Pakistani national residing in Iran.

EYP listened in to WhatsApp calls involving the three individuals.