Canada’s spy agency said it had thwarted potential “deadly threats” from Iran

Canada’s spy agency said it foiled deadly Iranian plots targeting critics of the regime.

This year, Canada’s domestic spy agency thwarted potentially deadly threats Iran The agency’s head said in a rare speech on Thursday that it was directed against people Tehran considers enemies.

Dan Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said his agents prevented attempts Russia To illegally obtain Canadian goods and technologies.

Rogers, who was appointed in February, spoke while providing an annual update on the security challenges facing Canada. CSIS directors rarely appear in public.

His comments were the first confirmation that the agency intervened to protect Iran’s critics based in Canada. In August, the CIA merely said it was investigating Iranian threats.

“In particularly troubling cases over the past year, we have had to reprioritize our operations to confront the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they consider a threat to their regime,” Rogers said.

He continued: “In more than one case, this included detecting, investigating, and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada,” without providing details.

Relations between Canada and Iran are bad

Canada has particularly bad relations with Iran, and severed diplomatic relations in 2012. Last year, Canada listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, drawing condemnation from Tehran.

Canada is also a critic of Russia and its 2022 invasion Ukraine. Rogers said Russian illicit procurement networks were trying to illegally obtain Canadian goods and technology.

“This year, the CIA took action to prevent this by informing several Canadian companies that European-based front companies seeking their goods were in fact linked to Russian agents,” he said, adding that the companies took immediate action to deny the Russians.