German security agencies are increasingly concerned that Iran could be using not only its own agents but also criminal helpers to carry out attacks on German soil. The intelligence community points to cases in which Iranian services have targeted members of organised crime, such as the earlier arson attack on a synagogue in Bochum. “The tighter the regime is under pressure, the greater the risk of unpredictable reactions” said Marc Henrichmann (CDU), chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee that monitors the federal intelligence services, to the Sunday World.
Particularly the Iranian‑controlled militias, like Hezbollah, are said to be more active, Henrichmann added. “Jewish, Israeli and American institutions are now being specifically protected”. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) replied that “people from the circle of the Iranian expatriate opposition in Germany remain under continued scrutiny by Iranian intelligence services”. Although no violent incidents against Iranian opposition figures in Germany have yet been reported, there have been such incidents in other Western European states.
“If there has ever been a moment when Iran could deploy its capabilities for overseas operations, it is now” said former FBI terrorism investigator Matthew Levitt, quoted in the Sunday World. “The closer the regime is to an existential threat or a regime change, the more likely it is to retaliate by all means. This could include the use of Iranian agents, terrorist or criminal proxies, or attempts to incite lone wolves to act” Levitt, now director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explained.
According to the Sunday World report, Hezbollah sympathisers and Hamas supporters are particularly implicated in retaliatory attacks. Scandinavian countries are also in the focus of security services. Leading figures of the criminal Swedish organisation Foxtrot are said to cooperate with Iranian services and, in the past, have planned and carried out terrorist attacks on Israeli institutions and diplomatic missions in Europe on behalf of those services. Foxtrot, notorious for violence and drug trafficking, has been sanctioned by the U.S. State Department since March 2025 owing to its ties to the Iranian regime.