US, Israeli intel agencies tipped off Mexico to Iranian plan

Mexico thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate Israeli ambassador, officials say

Plan to kill Einat Kranz Neiger said hatched by IRGC official stationed in Tehran-ally Venezuela and Quds Force unit responsible for plots against Jewish sites in Australia, Europe

Mexican authorities, with assistance from the United States and Israeli intelligence agencies, thwarted an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to Mexico, Israeli and US officials said Friday.

A US official said that the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps initiated the plot to kill Ambassador Einat Kranz Neiger in late 2024 and that it was disrupted this year. The plot allegedly included recruiting operatives out of Iran’s embassy in Venezuela, whose authoritarian left-wing president, Nicolas Maduro, has a tactical alliance with Tehran.

“The plot was contained and does not pose a current threat,” the US official said in a statement to reporters on condition of anonymity. “This is just the latest in a long history of Iran’s global lethal targeting of diplomats, journalists, dissidents and anyone who disagrees with them, something that should deeply worry every country where there is an Iranian presence.”

The US official did not provide detailed evidence or say how the plot was contained.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Oren Marmorstein thanked “the security and law enforcement services in Mexico for thwarting a terrorist network directed by Iran that sought to attack Israel’s ambassador in Mexico.”

“The Israeli security and intelligence community will continue to work tirelessly, in full cooperation with security and intelligence agencies around the world, to thwart terrorist threats from Iran and its proxies against Israeli and Jewish targets worldwide,” he said.

Iran later denied plotting to assassinate the Israeli ambassador.

“It is a media invention, a great big lie, whose objective is to damage the friendly and historic relations between both countries (Mexico and Iran), which we categorically reject,” Tehran’s embassy in Mexico posted on X.

Mexico’s foreign relations and security ministries issued a brief joint statement saying that “they have no report with respect to a supposed attempt against the ambassador of Israel in Mexico.”

The foreign ministry “reiterates its willingness to maintain fluid communication with all accredited diplomatic representations in our country,” the statement said. The security ministry “reaffirms its respectful and coordinated collaboration, always within the framework of national sovereignty, with all security agencies that request it.”

Kranz-Neiger, when asked by Mexican media about the conflicting statements, said she was “unaware of the reasons” of Mexico’s denial.

“Those who acted to neutralize this threat were the Mexican security and intelligence authorities,” she told Radio Formula.

The United States has long accused Iran of seeking to assassinate current and former US officials as well as Israelis, including on US soil.

According to intelligence documents from one of the US officials, an IRGC officer named Hasan Izadi, who also goes by the name Masood Rahnema, initiated the alleged assassination plot against Kranz Neiger along with other Iranian officials while serving as an aide to Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela.

Plans for the assassination were hatched by the Quds Force’s Unit 11000, which has also advanced attacks in recent months against Jewish targets in Australia and Europe, according to sources cited by Haaretz and Axios.

The source cited by Haaretz said Izadi, who allegedly initiated the plot, had been responsible at Iran’s embassy in Venezuela for recruiting and handling IRGC agents throughout Latin America.

The thwarted assassination attempt in Mexico showed Iran has a large-scale terror network in the region used for carrying out attacks on Israeli and US targets, the source said, adding that American officials believe many of the planned terror attacks are directed from Tehran’s embassy in Venezuela. Last month, Israel revealed that the IRGC was responsible for a string of attacks on Jewish sites in Western countries.