German police raid 53 sites linked to group banned for links to Iran and support for Hezbollah

The German police 53 properties around the country, including a prominent mosque in Hamburg. The raids come hours after the government banned an organization accused of being an “outpost” of Iran’s theocracy, promoting the ideology of its leadership and supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group.

The ban on the Islamic Center Hamburg, or IZH, and five suborganizations around Germany followed searches in November. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser says evidence gathered in the investigation “confirmed the serious suspicions to such a degree that we ordered the ban today.”

The IZH “promotes an Islamist-extremist, totalitarian ideology in Germany,” while it and its suborganizations “also support the terrorists of Hezbollah and spread aggressive antisemitism,” Faeser says in a statement.

Her ministry says that “as the direct representative of Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution,’ the IZH disseminates the ideology of the Islamic Revolution in an aggressive and militant way and seeks to bring about such a revolution in the Federal Republic of Germany.”

The distinctive blue-tiled Imam Ali Mosque in Hamburg, the group’s most prominent facility, was among the properties raided by police early this morning. There were also raids in Berlin and six other German states.

The IZH has long been under observation by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which said in its annual report for 2023 that it is Iran’s most important representative in Germany beside the country’s embassy.