's regime has been formally accused of orchestrating assassination attempts on European soil, in a revelation that has triggered renewed calls for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be designated a terrorist organisation. The Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) announced in a recent annual report on Thursday that Iran was "likely responsible" for two separate attempts to assassinate Iranian dissidents in . The findings have prompted the to summon Tehran's ambassador for an official reprimand.

In June 2024, Dutch police arrested two suspects in Haarlem in connection with a failed plot to kill an Iranian dissident residing there. One of the men is also linked to the near-fatal shooting of Professor Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish politician and nuclear physicist, in Madrid last November. Vidal-Quadras, a former Vice President of the European Parliament and a longstanding critic of Iran's clerical regime, was shot at point-blank range near his home in Madrid.

He survived only because he turned his head at the last second, taking a bullet to the jaw.

Speaking after the Dutch intelligence revelations, he said: "The terrorist act against me was no random incident; it was a calculated attempt to suppress dissent and instil fear among defenders of freedom and human rights.

"The AIVD's findings confirm what I have asserted from the outset: the clerical regime in Tehran organised this terrorist act because I have for decades been a staunch critic of the ruling terrorist dictatorship in Iran and a supporter of the Iranian Resistance."

Vidal-Quadras, who heads the International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ), a Brussels-based NGO, has long advocated for a tougher European stance against Tehran.

In a statement, he called for the immediate designation of the IRGC as a terrorist group and for the closure of Iranian embassies across Europe.

The Dutch report is the first official European intelligence assessment to openly blame Iran for targeting European politicians.

According to the AIVD, Tehran has for years used criminal networks in Europe to "silence purported opponents of the regime."

In 2018, Iranian "diplomat" Assadollah Assadi - in reality the Europe bureau chief for Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security - was convicted of masterminding a foiled bomb plot targeting a major NCRI rally outside Paris.

He was later found to possess a green notebook listing 289 sites across 11 European countries where he had allegedly built links with agents of the regime.

Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said the revelations expose a broader campaign of terror targeting the NCRI and its supporters."Targeting a prominent politician at the heart of Europe was not a random act," he said.

"The regime has ordered attacks on the offices of NCRI and its supporters in London, Stockholm, Berlin and Paris. It even plotted to bomb the NCRI's gathering in Paris in 2018, masterminded by its so-called diplomat Assadollah Assadi."

He added: "The European Union and its member states must now act decisively. They must designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, close Iran's embassies and cultural centres, and expel its agents."

The call echoes the EU's own 1997 decision to expel Iranian intelligence operatives after earlier terror plots. Activists argue that continued appeasement will only embolden Tehran, and that robust action is needed to safeguard European citizens and Iranian dissidents."

The IRGC, founded after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, wields vast military, political, and economic influence in Iran and is already designated a terrorist organisation by the United States.

Despite his survival, Vidal-Quadras warned that others remain in danger. "My survival was nothing short of a miracle, but the threat remains for others targeted by Tehran's machinery of repression and terrorism," he said.

"I express my solidarity with all victims of the Iranian regime's campaign of terror."