The US and Israel on Friday accused Iran of making an attempt to kill the Israeli ambassador to Mexico, with Tehran rejecting the declare as a “large lie” and the Mexican authorities saying it was not conscious.
The purported assassination try got here as tensions soared to new highs between Israel and Iran, which have every attacked the opposite’s territory.
Israel stated that Mexican authorities had intervened to cease the try to kill the ambassador, Einat Kranz-Neiger.
“We thank the safety and regulation enforcement companies in Mexico for thwarting a terrorist community directed by Iran that sought to assault Israel’s ambassador in Mexico,” Israel’s international ministry stated in a press release.
However Mexico’s international ministry, hours after the allegations have been first raised, stated it had “obtained no data” on the alleged incident.
With out naming the USA or Israel, Mexico’s Secretariat of Safety and Citizen Safety, which oversees intelligence, stated it was open to “respectful and coordinated cooperation, at all times inside the framework of nationwide sovereignty, with all safety businesses that request it.”
Iran’s embassy in Mexico referred to as the alleged plot “an important large lie.”
The target “is to wreck the pleasant and historic relations between each nations (Mexico and Iran), which we categorically reject,” the embassy in Mexico posted on X.
Mexico traditionally seeks non-intervention in worldwide affairs and has taken a extra cautious stance on the Gaza battle than different leftist-led Latin American nations.
Mexico has backed an investigation into allegations of Israeli battle crimes however has additionally maintained diplomatic relations with Israel, which have been established many years in the past and have been largely cordial.
– Alleged Venezuela connection –
A US official stated that the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Drive initiated the plot in late 2024 and that it was disrupted this yr.
The plot allegedly included recruiting operatives out of Iran’s embassy in Venezuela, whose leftist president, Nicolas Maduro, has a tactical alliance with Tehran.
“That is simply the newest in a protracted historical past of Iran’s international deadly concentrating on of diplomats, journalists, dissidents and anybody who disagrees with them, one thing that ought to deeply fear each nation the place there’s an Iranian presence,” the US official stated on situation of anonymity.
The US official didn’t present detailed proof or say how the plot was contained.
The alleged plot would have taken place after Israel on April 1, 2024 attacked the Iranian embassy advanced in Damascus, then a detailed ally of Tehran, killing a number of high officers of the Revolutionary Guards.
That assault prompted vows of revenge by Iran, which fired missiles and drones in opposition to Israel.
Israel a yr later carried out a way more intensive bombing marketing campaign in Iran, which killed greater than 1,000 folks. The US, Israel’s predominant ally, joined by bombing key websites of Iran’s contested nuclear program.
Iran’s cleric-run state has been a important supporter of Hamas, the armed Palestinian militant group in Gaza that carried out an unprecedented assault on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel responded with a relentless marketing campaign that has left most of Gaza in rubble and expanded its navy offensive throughout the area, hitting Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar and Yemen.
Israeli intelligence has accused the Quds Drive of plotting in opposition to Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.
Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador over what it stated was Iranian involvement in two arson assaults — in opposition to a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher restaurant in Sydney.
Latin America isn’t a stranger to violence linked to the Center East. A bombing at a Jewish middle in 1994 in Buenos Aires killed 85 folks, with Argentina and Israel saying it was carried out by Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on the request of Iran.
Iran stays house to a historic Jewish group regardless of the hostility to Israel by the cleric-run authorities that took energy with the 1979 Islamic revolution.