Four people were arrested Monday for allegedly attempting to bomb an exiled Iranian opposition group’s controversial rally this weekend in a Paris suburb, Reuters reports. The 25,000-person event was attended by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as several former European and Arab ministers. A married couple, identified as Amir S. and Nasimeh N., were charged with “attempted terrorist murder and preparation of a terrorist act,” Reuters reports, after they were apprehended early Saturday with more than a pound of a powerful explosive known as TATP and a detonation device. An Iranian diplomat assigned to Vienna was also arrested after authorities discovered that he had been in contact with the couple; authorities haven’t released information about the fourth arrested suspect.
The couple was allegedly targeting the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, an Iranian minority opposition group that had been on the United States’ terrorism list until 2012, The Washington Post reports. The NCRI, an “umbrella block” of organizations that includes the MEK, blamed the Iranian government, telling Reuters in a statement: “A plot by the religious dictatorship ruling Iran to carry out a terrorist attack against the grand gathering of the Iranian Resistance in Villepinte was foiled.”
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