Netherlands summons Iranian ambassador over alleged assassination attempts

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THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Iran’s ambassador to the Netherlands was summoned on Thursday after the Dutch intelligence agency said it suspected Tehran of being behind two assassination attempts in Europe, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

The Dutch general intelligence agency, known as the AIVD, said in its annual report published on Thursday that two men were arrested in June 2024 in the Dutch town of Haarlem after an assassination attempt there on an Iranian residing in the country.

One of the suspects is also suspected of the failed assassination attempt on Spanish politician and Iran critic Alejo Vidal-Quadras in Madrid in November 2023, it said.

“The two assassination attempts fit into the modus operandi that Iran has been using for years: using criminal networks in Europe to silence purported opponents of the regime. Based on intelligence, it is likely that Iran is responsible for the two liquidation attempts,” the AIVD said.

Several months after surviving the shooting attack, Vidal-Quadras, who co-founded the Spanish far-right party Vox, said he believed that Iran’s government had hired hitmen to assassinate him over his links to an Iranian dissident group, without providing evidence of the assertion.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch and Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Mark Porter)