Canadian intelligence agency says it foiled Iranian, Russian plots

Canada’s spy agency this year stopped a plot by Iranian intelligence services to target dissidents living in Canada, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service announced on Thursday. 

CSIS Director Dan Rogers, in a rare public appearance, told Canadians that his agency intervened to protect the lives of critics of the Islamic republic living in Canada after learning of a plan that threatened their lives. 

“In particularly alarming cases over the last year, we’ve had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime,” Mr. Rogers told the press. “In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating, and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada.”

Mr. Rogers did not provide any details on who the dissidents were or how Iranian intelligence was planning to target them. CSIS had announced in August that it was probing Iranian-based threats.

Canada does not have formal relations with the Islamic republic after severing them in 2012. Like the U.S., Canada has designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, which has further damaged relations between the two nations. 

In addition to plots by Iran, Mr. Rogers said his agency foiled a Russian intelligence operation to obtain Canadian goods illegally. 

“This year, CSIS took action to prevent this by informing several Canadian companies that Europe-based front companies seeking to acquire their goods were in fact connected to Russian agents,” he said. 

Mr. Rogers also sounded the alarm over increasing security threats in the Arctic, driven mostly by Russia and China.

“It is not a surprise that CSIS has observed both cyber and non-cyber intelligence collection efforts targeting both governments and the private sector in the region,” he said.