On October 26, 2025, a dramatic spotlight was cast on the shadowy world of international espionage and terrorism when Israeli intelligence agency Mossad publicly named an alleged Iranian mastermind behind a global campaign targeting Jewish communities. The man, identified as Sardar Ammar, is said to head Unit 11,000 within the Quds Force—the clandestine wing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to Mossad and corroborating reports from ABC News, Israel Hayom, and The Times of Israel, Ammar’s unit has orchestrated a string of attacks and attempted attacks on Jewish and Israeli sites across Australia, Germany, Greece, and beyond.
Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel, Iran has significantly ramped up its efforts to strike Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide. Mossad claims that Ammar commands a sprawling network of approximately 11,000 operatives, running covert operations that range from arson and vandalism to more sinister plots, all designed to intimidate Jewish communities and destabilize Israel’s allies. The Israeli agency alleges that these attacks were deliberately carried out by non-Iranians and criminal gangs to obscure Tehran’s direct involvement, a strategy intended to maintain plausible deniability for the Iranian regime.
“For years, the Iranian regime has viewed terrorism as a tool to exact a price from Israel by harming innocent people worldwide, without paying military, diplomatic, or economic costs,” Mossad stated, in remarks distributed by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and published by ABC News. The agency emphasized that this campaign operates under a logic of deniability, seeking to separate the violent activities from Iran’s official apparatus. “The ongoing international campaign against Iranian terrorism denies Iran its room for plausible deniability, removes its immunity, and exacts a heavy price from it in the international political arena.”
The operational methods of Ammar’s network have come under intense scrutiny. According to The Times of Israel, the network carried out vandalism and arson attacks against Jewish businesses and communal institutions, aiming to intimidate communities and create conditions that could lead to more serious attacks. There were also plans to target senior Jewish communal leaders. Intelligence agencies have described the attacks as “amateurish and bumbling,” with criminals in Sydney, for example, twice targeting the wrong venue before finally setting fire to a kosher restaurant in 2024.
Among the most high-profile incidents attributed to this network were the destruction of Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue in December 2024 and the arson attack on Sydney’s Lewis’ Continental Kitchen in October of the same year. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and ASIO chief Mike Burgess revealed in August 2025 that these attacks were directed by Iran but carried out by third parties. The news sent shockwaves through Australia’s Jewish community and prompted swift diplomatic action.
Australia responded by expelling Iran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, a move not taken since World War II. According to Israel Hayom, this expulsion, alongside Germany’s formal reprimand of the Iranian ambassador in Berlin, signaled an unprecedented level of intolerance for foreign-directed terror activity. Law enforcement authorities in both countries took these steps following the exposure and arrests linked to Sardar Ammar’s infrastructure. The Israeli government claimed credit for prompting Australia’s tough stance, though Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke dismissed the notion that Australia had been “shamed” into action, calling such claims “complete nonsense.”
The reach of Ammar’s network extended far beyond Australia. In July 2024, Greek anti-terrorism police arrested seven people—including two Iranians—over arson attacks against an Israeli-owned hotel and synagogue in Athens. That same month, German authorities arrested a Danish man suspected of gathering intelligence on Jewish sites in Berlin for Iranian intelligence, allegedly in preparation for further attacks. The Times of Israel reported that the man spied on three properties in June, raising fears of a broader campaign targeting European Jewish communities.
The international response has been forceful. In July 2025, fourteen countries—including the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany—issued a joint statement condemning what they described as a surge in assassination, kidnapping, and harassment plots orchestrated by Iranian intelligence services. “We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty,” the statement read. Britain claimed to have disrupted more than 20 Iran-linked plots to kidnap or kill individuals, including British nationals, since early 2022.
Iran’s efforts have not gone unnoticed by watchdogs. A July 2025 report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom warned that Iran was ramping up attacks against Jewish targets in Europe, often using local proxies such as the Foxtrot and Rumba gangs in Sweden, and criminal networks in the UK, Germany, France, and Belgium. The report noted a pattern of proxy warfare, with Iran seeking to avoid direct confrontation while still inflicting harm on its adversaries.
The broader context is a long-standing proxy war between Israel and Iran, which in 2024 escalated into direct confrontation. That year saw two Iranian missile and drone strikes on Israel, followed by a 12-day war in June 2025 during which Israel reportedly struck Iran’s key nuclear facilities and killed senior leadership in both Iran’s regular military and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. The IRGC, answerable only to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, controls an arsenal of ballistic missiles and has been at the forefront of Iran’s regional ambitions.
Mossad’s public exposure of Sardar Ammar and his network is seen by many analysts as a strategic move to undermine Iran’s ability to operate covertly. By naming names and detailing operational methods, Israel aims to strip Iran of its deniability and rally international support for tougher measures. The release of a grainy photograph of Ammar and a graphic of his place in the IRGC command hierarchy further underscores the seriousness with which Israel views the threat.
While Iran has long denied direct involvement in attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, the mounting evidence and coordinated international response suggest that the costs of such operations are rising. The coming months are likely to see continued pressure on Iran’s diplomatic standing, as well as increased vigilance among the world’s Jewish communities and their allies.
As the struggle between covert networks and counter-terrorism agencies plays out across continents, the exposure of Sardar Ammar’s operation marks a significant moment in the ongoing battle against transnational terror—and a sobering reminder of the lengths to which some actors will go to advance their geopolitical aims.
