NAIROBI, Kenya โ When Ethiopiaโs intelligence agency recently uncovered a cell of 15 people it said were casing the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, along with a cache of weapons and explosives, it claimed to have foiled a major attack with the potential to sow havoc in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
But the Ethiopians omitted a key detail about the purported plot: who was behind it.
The only clue was the arrest of a 16th person: Accused of being the ringleader, Ahmed Ismail had been picked up in Sweden with the cooperation of friendly โAfrican, Asian and European intelligence services,โ the Ethiopians said.
Now American and Israeli officials say the operation was the work of Iran, whose intelligence service activated a sleeper cell in Addis Ababa last fall with orders to gather intelligence also on the embassies of the United States and Israel.
They say the Ethiopian operation was part of a wider drive to seek soft targets in African countries where Iran might avenge painful, high-profile losses such as the death ofย Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iranโs top nuclear scientist, said to have been killed by Israel in November, andย Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian spymaster killed by the United States in Iraq just over one year ago.
Citing Western intelligence sources, Rear Adm. Heidi K. Berg, director of intelligence at the Pentagonโs Africa command, said that Iran was behind the 15 people arrested in Ethiopia and that the โmastermind of this foiled plot,โ Mr. Ismail,ย had been arrested in Sweden.
โEthiopia and Sweden collaborated on the disruption to the plot,โ Admiral Berg said in a statement.
Iran denied the accusations. โThese are baseless allegations only provoked by the Zionist regimeโs malicious media,โ said a spokeswoman for the Iranian Embassy in Addis Ababa. โNeither Ethiopia nor the Emirates said anything about Iranian interference in these issues.โ
The United Arab Emirates angered Iran when itย normalized relations with Israelย in September as part of a series of agreements brokered by the Trump administration in its final months and known as the Abraham Accords.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian police, which named just two of the 15 people arrested, declined to say why Ethiopia did not finger Iran for the plot. Several diplomats said that Ethiopia, as Africaโs diplomatic capital and home to the headquarters of the African Union, tries to avoid getting publicly embroiled in delicate issues involving major powers.
Even so, Ethiopiaโs National Intelligence and Security Service said that a second group of plotters had been preparing to hit the Emirati Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. A Sudanese official confirmed that account.
A senior United States defense official linked the arrests in Ethiopia to a failed Iranian plan to kill the United States ambassador to South Africa, which wasย reported by Politicoย in September. The American and Sudanese officials agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of its diplomatic and intelligence sensitivity.
Still, much about the Ethiopian arrests and alleged Iranian role remained murky. The Ethiopian police have yet to formally charge the 15 plot suspects, only two of whom have been identified. Israeli officials say that as few as three of them may be actual Iranian operatives, with the others having been caught in the Ethiopian dragnet.
And the arrests in Ethiopia come at a time of heightened political sensitivity in Iran and the United States, as the Biden administration considers its posture toward Tehran and whether to revive the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald J. Trumpย scrapped in 2018.
Adding to the pressure on President Biden, Iranโs intelligence ministerย suggested last week that his country might seek to obtain nuclear armsย if American sanctions were not lifted soon.
While Admiral Berg confirmed several details about Iranโs role in the Ethiopian arrests, other military and diplomatic officials in Washington declined to discuss it.
In contrast, officials in Israel, whose government is openly hostile to any thaw between Washington and Tehran, highlighted the purported plot as further evidence that Iran cannot be trusted.
For all its efforts, Iran has yet to deliver on its promises of vengeance for its high-profile losses, beyond a missile attack on American forces in Iran in January 2020, days after General Suleimani was killed.
Any plan to hit the U.A.E., as suggested by the arrests in Ethiopia, would be a curious choice, given its potential to undermine Mr. Bidenโs putative nuclear diplomacy with Iran, saidย Aaron David Miller,ย a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Other analysts, though, said that the U.A.E. was high on Iranโs list of enemies and that the embassy in Ethiopia might present an unchallenging target at a time when Ethiopia is distracted byย a war that has been raging in its northern Tigrayย region since November.
โAfrica is a relatively easy place to operate, and Ethiopia is preoccupied with other issues,โ saidย Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer now with the Brookings Institution.
The murky episode seemed destined to become the latest in a series of cat-and-mouse episodes between Iranian and Israeli operatives on African soil in recent years.
During the 1990s, Iran enjoyed close ties with Sudan under the autocratic ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and in the next decade it was able to dock its warships in Eritrea.
Israel struck back in 2009 with airstrikes against aย convoy of smuggler trucksย in Sudan that aimed to stop Iranian-supplied weapons from reaching the Gaza Strip, American officials said.
But Iranโs ties to the Horn of Africa have withered in recent years, and Israeli and Emirati involvement has grown.
The Emiratesย helped mediateย a landmark peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2018, and now it is Emirati warships that are docked in Eritrean ports.
In November, following a call between the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a team of Israeli drone pilotsย arrived in Ethiopiaย to help eliminate the locusts that have plagued the countryโs farmers.
Weeks later, Yossi Cohen, the chief of the Mossad, Israelโs covert intelligence service, met with his Ethiopian counterpart to discuss what they termed โcounterterrorism operations.โ
Elsewhere in Africa, Israeli intelligence officials say they frequently tip off friendly countries about suspected Iranian activity.
In Kenya, two Iraniansย arrested in 2012ย and charged with possession of 15 kilograms of explosives are now serving 15-year prison sentences. Kenyan officials said the men were members of Iranโs Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force. Their lawyers said they had been interrogated by Israeli intelligence while in Kenyan custody.
Four years later, in 2016, Kenyaย deported two Iraniansย who had been arrested outside the Israeli Embassy with video footage of the facility. Iran said the men, who had been traveling in an Iranian diplomatic car,ย were university teachers.
Iranian agents have been suspected in attacks or thwarted attacks in countries including Georgia, Thailand and India. On Feb. 4, a Belgian court strippedย an Iranian envoy of his diplomatic status and sentenced him to 20 years in prisonย for having organized a thwarted bomb attack aimed at an Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018.
That failed plot and another in Denmark prompted the European Union in 2019 toย impose sanctionsย on Iranโs external spy service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Israeli officials say the same agency orchestrated the operation in Ethiopia.
Sofia Hellqvist, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Police Authority, referred questions about the arrest of Mr. Ismail, the alleged ringleader, to the authorities in Ethiopia.
A spokesman for the United Arab Emirates did not respond to a request for comment.
Given the stakes, it was unclear why the Iranians might risk a rapprochement with the Biden administration by mounting an operation now.
Farzin Nadimi, a specialist on the Iranian armed forces with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran may wish to send a message to the Biden administration officials that โunless they reach a deal with Iran quickly this is what they get: a dangerous neighborhood.โ
Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi; Eric Schmitt from Washington; Simon Marks from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv. Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.
- แแแ แแธแ แจแแแฉแต แแซแจแ โ แฐแญแแ แฅแ แแฅแต แจแณแฐแแ แแชแแฐแแแ แจแแฐแแ แจแแชแแฝ แจแฅแ แ แฅแ แ แฅแซแ แแ แแแ แจแฐแฐแแ แแโฆ Read more: แแแ แแธแ แจแแแฉแต แแซแจแ โ แฐแญแแ แฅแ แแฅแต แจแณแฐแแ แแชแ
- แแฎแแฐแญ แญแแตแซ แจแฐแฅแจแ แฎแแ แกแตแ โแซแแ แตแ แฐแฑ แจแแญแแญ แฐแธแซแญ โ แ แแตแค แแ แจแฐแฆ แ แแซแญ แฐแจแแ แฆแญแแฑ แแ แต แแแ แแ แจแแ แซแธแ แแฎแแฐแญ แญแแตแซ แแฅแจแ แญแแต โแจแฐแฅแจแ แฎแ แกแตแโฆ Read more: แแฎแแฐแญ แญแแตแซ แจแฐแฅแจแ แฎแแ แกแตแ โแซแแ แตแ แฐแฑ แจแแญแแญ แฐแธแซแญ โ แ แแตแค แแ แจแฐแฆ แ แแซแญ แฐแจแ
- The Wars We Still Can StopยCameron Hudson (New York TimesMay Opinion Mr. Hudson is aโฆ Read more: The Wars We Still Can Stopย
