Last month, Germany announced that it would deport Mohammed Mofatteh, the former director of Hamburg’s Shi’a Islamic Center, which local authorities had ordered shut down five weeks earlier for propagating extremism, and for its financial links to Hezbollah.

Mofatteh, according to German authorities, was getting direct orders from the Iranian Supreme Leader’s office about radical public messaging on the current war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

Since it banned Hezbollah as a terrorist organization four years ago, Germany has closed six Iranian-linked Islamic Centers and deported some of their officials. In November 2022, Germany expelled the deputy director of the Hamburg Shi’a Islamic Center. In June 2024, the German government ordered the deportation of the director of a Berlin-based center.

Other countries should follow Germany’s approach.

After nearly four decades of virtually unhindered activity, Iranian-backed cultural centers and mosques have proliferated outside the Middle East. They have indoctrinated, radicalized, converted, and mobilized thousands of locals, who, unlike Mofatteh and his colleagues, cannot be deported.

Cases in point: Pro-Iranian centers exist in Italy, Spain, and South Africa. Their directors are, respectively, Italian-born, Spanish-born, and South African-born graduates of Al Mustafa. They peddle pro-Iran and pro-Hezbollah narratives through their centers’ activities.

The main bastions of Iran’s ideological influence beyond its borders are mosques and cultural centers, directly controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, or linked to Al Mustafa International University, an ostensibly academic institution also under Khamenei’s direct control.

The US Department of the Treasury sanctioned Al Mustafa in 2020 for its role in Iran’s propaganda efforts, including support for the training and indoctrination of Shiite militias.

With a budget of more than $100 million a year, directly provided by the Office of the Supreme Leader, Al Mustafa has been able to train tens of thousands of emissaries, who are now deployed overseas to spread the word of Iran’s sponsored Axis of Resistance and recruit locals to the cause of Khomeini’s revolution. Establishing mosques and cultural centers is central to this elaborate, global effort to spread Iran’s revolutionary brand. These institutions pose as places of worship and cultural inquiry. In fact, they are propaganda tools in the ayatollahs’ war against the West.

Beyond Europe, the problem is even more acute. European governments can and should follow Germany’s example, since they rely on robust counter-terrorism legislation and designations of organizations like Hezbollah — albeit, in most cases, just the so-called military wing.

Countries in Latin America and Africa, on the other hand, do not have as strong a legal framework to take similar actions. But Iran’s propaganda networks are very active there.

According to the 2015 annual posture statement of the then-US Southern Command’s leader, General John F. Kelly, Iran had by then established more than 80 centers in the Western Hemisphere. That number has since grown. Moreover, a Middle East Forum 2018 report identified 17 Al Mustafa branches in Africa, alongside dozens of schools and other institutions affiliated with it, and thousands of students and graduates.

Al Mustafa’s propagation model relies on its graduates as force multipliers. Many return to their home countries to open and run new centers, while their alma mater supports their work from regional headquarters headed by Iranian officials. Al Mustafa, for example, has a regional headquarter, headed by its permanent representative, Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Nejad, in Venezuela and a campus in Johannesburg, run by a South African cleric trained in Iran. Clergy from the various centers routinely meet and coordinate propaganda activities, while emissaries travel to and from Iran regularly.

There are sparse but notable exceptions to the laissez-faire approach of governments that host Iranian centers.

Last April, Brazilian immigration authorities detained Sheikh Ruben Edgardo (aka Suheil) Assaad, a key Iranian propaganda emissary, as he arrived in São Paulo, Brazil, from Doha, Qatar, to attend a Western Hemisphere gathering of Iran and Hezbollah clergy. Brazil’s federal authorities believe Assaad is linked to Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. On that basis, they put Assaad on the next plane to Doha and will no longer grant him entry into the country.

Yet, while Assaad may no longer visit Brazil, there remains a robust cohort of Al Mustafa-trained Shi’a clerics with local citizenship running centers across the region.

Assaad trained many of them, alongside his boss, sheikh Mohsen Rabbani, who is wanted by Argentina’s authorities and Interpol due to his role in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires that was destroyed by a suicide car bomb in 1994, leaving 85 people dead and more than 200 wounded.

The problem is even more acute now.

Since October 7, 2023 — when Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis, triggering a new conflict in the region on behalf of its proxy, Iran — Tehran and its proxies have been leveraging their networks overseas, including their cultural and religious centers, to carry out terror attacks, while whipping up a frenzy of anti-Israel hatred in the public sphere.

Last November, Brazilian authorities foiled a Hezbollah plot to target Jewish institutions in Brasilia, the country’s capital. The point man in the plot, a Hezbollah member with both Syrian and Brazilian citizenships who sought to recruit Brazilian nationals with a criminal background, was instrumental in the recent establishment of an Iranian cultural center in Brasilia and was closely connected to both a prominent Shi’a Brazilian convert and key Iran propagandist, and to a Shi’a cleric who works in a São Paulo Shi’a mosque affiliated with Hezbollah.

In August, a Tajikistan national and graduate of Al Mustafa was arrested in Central Asia, where he was allegedly plotting terror attacks. Other plots have also just emerged in France and Germany, where local Iranian proxies followed a similar modus operandi and sought to recruit criminals to carry out terror attacks.

At this critical juncture, governments must do more: Minimizing the risk of terror attacks requires not only foiling active plots but also nipping in the bud efforts to radicalize and incite captive audiences.

Closing these centers, as Germany did; denying entry to Iranian clerical emissaries, as Brazil did; and monitoring the content of sermons and the dissemination of literature and proselytizing material by Iran-affiliated centers, are all urgently required steps that must be undertaken elsewhere by governments to protect their citizens from Iranian-backed terror.

Western governments have routinely undertaken similar actions in the past, when the threat from Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State was most acute. There is no reason they should not do the same with Iran, its proxies, and the elaborate web of cultural and religious institutions they use to spread Iran’s radical extremism.

Wouldn’t it be better to preempt the next attack, rather than have a government’s leaders commit themselves to renewed vigilance while standing in the smoldering ruins of an Iranian-backed strike?

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington DC-based non-partisan research institution focusing on national security and foreign policy. Follow him on X @eottolenghi

The post Iran Is Using Foreign Islamic Centers to Spread Terror and Hatred; the World Must Close Them first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

More communications devices used by the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah exploded on Wednesday afternoon across the group’s main stronghold in Beirut and in southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least nine people were killed and 300 were wounded in the latest series of device explosions as Hezbollah, which wields significant political and military influence across Lebanon, was thrown into disarray for the second day in a row.

The attack began on Tuesday, when thousands of Hezbollah members were seriously wounded when the pagers they use to communicate exploded. At least 12 people were killed, and more than 2,800 were wounded in the initial round of blasts.

Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was among those injured by the pager explosions and reportedly lost an eye.

Then on Wednesday, hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated. According to eyewitness reports, at least one of the blasts took place during the funerals for some of the terrorists killed the prior day in the first wave of explosions.

Videos shared on social media showed scenes of chaos across Lebanon on both days, with hospitals overflowing with victims and some explosions reportedly taking place in apartments and houses.

A source close to Hezbollah, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the pagers from Tuesday’s detonations were “sabotaged at the source” before being imported by Hezbollah. Meanwhile, one Hezbollah official told Reuters that the explosions marked the “biggest security breach” in the terrorist group’s history.

The hand-held radios were reportedly purchased by Hezbollah five months ago, around the same time that the pagers were bought.

Hezbollah members in the southern suburbs of Beirut were seen on Wednesday “frantically taking out the batteries of any walkie-talkies on them that had not exploded, tossing the parts in metal barrels around them,” Reuters reported.

The walkie-talkies were said to be part of Hezbollah’s emergency communications systems for use during a conflict with Israel, which borders southern Lebanon.

A Hezbollah official told Reuters that as the attack began, the terrorist group raised its level of military readiness in case it was the beginning of a bigger Israeli offensive by Israel. Meanwhile, Hezbollah leaders, who did not carry the devices, turned to the group’s internal phone network to find out what was happening.

Experts and several media outlets have said that Israeli intelligence was behind the explosions with a sophisticated, long planned operation, although Israel has neither publicly confirmed nor denied responsibility.

“The goal was to convince Hezbollah that it is in its interest to disconnect itself from Hamas and cut a separate deal for ending the fighting with Israel regardless of a ceasefire in Gaza,” an anonymous source told Axios.

Dr. Eyal Pinko, an Israeli cyber and national security expert, similarly said the operation served as a message to Hezbollah, showcasing vulnerabilities in its security apparatus and serving as a form of deterrence.

“It’s saying that, ‘you’re already being penetrated. We know where you are and what you do. Now look what we can do: In one single shot, in less than a second, we can eliminate almost 3,000 terror operatives,’” Pinko said during a briefing with reporters on Tuesday evening.

Despite Israel’s silence on the explosions, senior Lebanese officials have blame the Jewish state. So too has Hezbollah, which said Israel would receive “its fair punishment.”

The Iran-backed terrorist group, which seeks Israel’s destruction, said on Wednesday it had attacked Israeli artillery positions with rockets.

Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones at northern Israel almost daily following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists on the Jewish state’s southern region. Since then, both sides have been exchanging fire constantly while avoiding a major escalation as war rages in Gaza to the south.

About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate their homes in northern Israel and flee to other parts of the country amid the unrelenting attacks from Hezbollah.

Israeli leaders have said they seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon but are prepared to use large-scale military force if needed to ensure all citizens can safely return to their homes.

On Monday night, Israel’s security cabinet expanded its war goals to include returning the displaced Israelis from the north.

According to some reports, the explosions occurred this week because Israel feared Hezbollah was becoming suspicious and would discover the secret operation.

The post More Hezbollah Communications Devices Detonate Across Lebanon as Terror Group Thrown Into Disarray first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Due to the sheer volume of recent news stories concerning Israel, you may have missed two mostly unnoticed but important developments regarding Israel in the world of international law.

In the International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa has been suing Israel for genocide.  I’ve been saying for months that South Africa does not have a case, but that the lawsuit is nonetheless dangerous because South Africa’s  goal is not to win. Instead, its goal is to achieve an “emergency injunction” that would stop Israel’s campaign against Hamas, effectively handing the terror organization a victory.

Such an injunction would not require actually proving the claims against Israel, and so the emergency injunction has always been South Africa’s (and Hamas’) best chance of effectively defeating the IDF.

South Africa has made two unsuccessful attempts to obtain emergency orders, and is now coming up against an October 28 deadline to, at long last, submit their actual evidence of “genocide.”

Last week, South Africa petitioned the ICJ for an extension of several months, apparently because (unsurprisingly) they have not succeeded in finding such evidence.

While this is a small vindication, it is by no means the end of the story. Ihe ICJ is only nominally a “court,” but in reality, functions as a political body. The ICJ’s current President is Nawaf Salam of Lebanon, which is effectively controlled by the Iranian backed Hezbollah terror organization and is actively at war with Israel. The ICJ judges include representatives from countries that have recently demonstrated strongly anti-Israel agendas, such as China and Brazil, as well as South Africa — the very country that’s suing Israel.  Even the US delegate to the court has voted consistently against Israel in recent decisions.

In fact the only judge who has stood both firmly and eloquently in favor of Israel is the court’s Vice President, Julia Sebutinde of Uganda.

So while logic dictates that South Africa should not be able to win a lawsuit without evidence, politics has no such limitations. Israel has been petitioning the United States Congress for support in pressuring the ICJ to drop their case, and so has my organization.

An entirely separate international body is the International Criminal Court (ICC), in which prosecutor Karim Khan has petitioned the court to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as several Hamas leaders (two of whom are now dead).

The court has been deliberating the request since May, and last week, Khan issued a new request that the court issue the arrest warrants “urgently.”

It is not clear why such arrest warrants are now more urgent than before, yet some Israeli sources are concerned that the ICC may be sympathetic to the prosecutor’s request anyway. There is some speculation that this “urgency”  may be designed to preempt Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly later this month.

Much like the emergency orders in the ICJ, these ICC arrest warrants do not actually require proof. Instead, the prosecutor needs to  provide only minimal evidence that his claims are reasonably possible, and he gets to do so “ex parte” — which means alone and without Israel having the opportunity to respond.

Like the ICJ, the ICC is also primarily a political body in the guise of a “court,”  and therefore, sufficiently dramatic claims against Israel, especially when presented “ex parte” and with the right political pressure, may be adequate to persuade the judges.

Why does all of this matter?  Here’s just one example: since the election of the Labor government, the UK has removed its objection to the ICC proceedings, and this month suspended the shipment of certain military items to Israel, in what amounts to essentially a “soft embargo.”  The items in question include important parts for military equipment, such as the F-35 fighter jet, which wear out quickly and need constant replacement. Such parts are manufactured in only a few factories in the entire world and cannot be easily replaced.

Why doesn’t Israel make the parts itself? The factories are so specialized that even if Israel started building one today, it would take years and billions of dollars before production could even begin. Even “Israeli” inventions, such as the Merkava tank, make use of these specialized parts from foreign sources. In short, for the foreseeable future Israel depends on foreign resources to keep the IDF working.

If a relevant international body such as the ICJ were to make a ruling against Israel, instead of seeing a “soft embargo” of some military equipment by some countries, we might see official worldwide embargoes encompassing all equipment.

In as little as several months, as equipment begins to fail, the IDF could run out of working jets, helicopters, tanks, and all of the other tools necessary for the IDF to function as an actual army. Israel would become defenseless, not only against even a weakened Hamas, but also against Iran and all of its various proxies.

This reality relates to may other issues. For example, in the recent debate over whether Israel should abandon the Philadelphi corridor as part of a hostage deal, some IDF generals claim that Israel can simply retake it “at any time.” Yet when IDF generals speak about Israel’s capabilities, they usually refer only to military tactics and strategy, and often overlook the geopolitical forces that could strip the IDF of its capacity to function.

If Israel were to enter an internationally binding agreement (for example over Philadelphi) and then violate it, these kind of embargoes are just one possible consequence.

For this reason, we are keeping a close eye on activities at the ICC, the ICJ, the United Nations, the US Congress, and all the various bodies that have significant influence over Israel’s long term safety, and are actively involved in petitioning those bodies as well.

Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.

The post How the International Law Cases Against Israel Could Truly Cripple the IDF first appeared on Algemeiner.com.