Tehran directed at least two antisemitic attacks in Australia, says spy chief, as diplomats expelled

The Iranian government "lit the matches and fanned the flames" of antisemitism in Australia, directing at least two arson attacks in the past year - on a synagogue and a Jewish cafe - the country's spy chief has said.

- Ben Doherty

Mike Burgess, the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio), said Tehran was "likely" to be behind even more antisemitic attacks across the country.

He spoke as Australia's prime minister, Anthony Albanese, yesterday announced that his government had expelled the Iranian ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Tehran's paramilitary defenders of the 1979 revolution, will now be proscribed by Australia as a terrorist organisation.

Iranian diplomats posted to Australia were not involved, Burgess said. Sadeghi and three other officials have been given seven days to leave the country - the first expulsion of an ambassador from Australia since the second world war - and the Iranian embassy in Canberra has been shut down.

The foreign ministry in Tehran said the accusations were "absolutely rejected". A spokesman added that "any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction".

Since the 1979 revolution, Australia had consistently maintained diplomatic relations with Iran as well as an embassy in the capital, Tehran, until it was shuttered in June in the wake of US bombing raids. All Australia's diplomatic staff are already out of the country.