Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Intelligence have been using Europe’s street gangs to terrorize Israeli and Jewish targets. At the center of this alleged conspiracy is Rawa Majid, an Iranian-born criminal who grew up in Sweden and runs a network of drug dealers and killers known as “Foxtrot.” The gang is responsible for at least 35 murders since 2022. Majid’s relocation to Iran began in October 2023, when Iranian authorities arrested him near the border after he fled his safe haven in Turkey. Tehran, which can extradite Majid, decided to keep him as an asset to endanger Israeli embassies, defense contractors, and Jewish organizations in Europe.
Tehran, which can extradite Majid, decided to keep him as an asset to endanger Israeli embassies, defense contractors, and Jewish organizations in Europe.
The Majid-Iran partnership bore immediate fruits in the form of terrorist acts. In January 2024, security forces discovered an undetonated hand grenade at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm. Foxtrot exported this terror blueprint across Europe. In May, a 14-year-old Foxtrot gunman opened fire near the Stockholm mission. Soon after, the gang staged a grenade attack against the Israeli embassy in Brussels. By October 2024, Foxtrot’s campaign peaked with twin grenade attacks in Copenhagen and sabotage attempts against Gothenburg’s Elbit Systems facilities. According to Swedish security services, outsourcing terrorist acts to local street gangs has become Tehran’s preferred option to wage war against its foreign enemies.
The axis has reached the North Sea. British and Norwegian authorities in March 2025 caught 19-year-old Johannes Natland of Stavanger in a Huddersfield hotel room, armed with two guns. He had traveled to the United Kingdom to carry out a paid contract killing for Foxtrot. His 20-year sentence this month marked a milestone because prosecutors declared the assassination attempt as Foxtrot’s first operation on British soil, ordered directly by Iran. Washington and London responded by imposing similar economic sanctions on Majid and Foxtrot in the spring of 2025. Still, financial penalties can do little to stop a state-protected syndicate backed by black-market cash.
Historically, Tehran conducted its European operations through its own operatives. For example, in July 1989, Iranian agents used diplomatic cover to assassinate the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran, Abdol-Rahman Ghassemlou, during negotiations in Vienna. However, Tehran since has changed its tactics. Rather than using internal assassination squads to target Kurdish dissidents, Iran now uses a Kurdish-Swedish criminal to strike Jewish-Israeli targets. This move not only protects the regime but also diverts European investigators away from the real perpetrators, who are likely to be faceless teenage gunslingers whom countries like Sweden are unable to prosecute under their minimum age of criminal responsibility.
Because European sanctions and low-level takedown attempts leave the command node intact, Majid can coordinate his terror operations safely. Operating out of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps safe houses inside Iran and using the porous border area between Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan through which to transit, Majid can maintain his operations with plausible deniability by Tehran. Conventional law enforcement measures have reached their limit, and the only way to preserve Israeli deterrence is to target Majid.
Conventional law enforcement measures have reached their limit, and the only way to preserve Israeli deterrence is to target Majid.
The Mossad should use its operational capabilities to trap and target Majid during one of his recorded border crossings. First, Mossad must track his regular routes along Kurdish smuggling pathways by cross-referencing commercial satellite imagery with monetary transfers to his parents in Sulaymaniyah. Second, a small team of operatives embedded on the opposite side of the Iraqi border could lure Majid to a secluded crossing under the pretense of discussing a “family financial settlement.” At the kill zone, remote detonation of munitions or a rapid ground assault facilitated by local informants from rival trafficking rings could take out Majid without having to penetrate the depths of Iranian territory. This would play on the chaos of border traffic, the gangster’s own financial vulnerabilities, and his general lack of protection outside of Tehran’s immediate security perimeter.
Ultimately, European governments cannot order Majid’s extradition, nor do they have the political will to dismantle his sanctuary. Israel’s only option is to neutralize the “Kurdish Fox,” restore deterrence, and eliminate Iran’s European proxy before a fatal mass-casualty attack against Jews and Israelis takes place.
