2022年7月，Masih Alinejad正在她位于布鲁克林住宅后院的向日葵丛中采摘番茄和黄瓜，当时她注意到前门廊上有一个魁梧的男子在徘徊。他并不是来欣赏植被的。
In July 2022, Masih Alinejad was picking tomatoes and cucumbers in the sunflower-filled backyard of her Brooklyn home when she spotted a burly man loitering on her front porch. He wasn’t there to admire the foliage.
据称，来自东欧有组织犯罪网络的Khalid Mehdiyev曾受雇参与由德黑兰策划的一项价值50万美元的谋杀雇佣计划，目标是伊朗裔美国记者和人权活动家Masih Alinejad。
Khalid Mehdiyev, part of an Eastern European organized-crime network, had allegedly been hired to kill Alinejad, the Iranian American journalist and human rights activist, in a $500,000 murder-for-hire plot directed by Tehran.
警方在其汽车中发现了一支AK-47步枪、66发弹药和一顶滑雪面具后，成功挫败了该计划，并逮捕了Mehdiyev。
Police foiled the plan, arresting Mehdiyev after finding an AK-47, 66 rounds of ammunition and a ski mask in his car.
此案凸显了一种超越伊朗国界的全球威胁。虽然德黑兰的弹道导弹、核野心以及对哈马斯、真主党和胡塞武装等代理人的支持常常占据新闻头条，但伊斯兰共和国近年来在西方土地上日益针对活动家、记者及其他被视为敌人的人士，常通过雇佣当地恶棍实施暴力，以使政权保持距离并获得合理的否认空间。
The case highlighted a global threat extending far beyond Iran’s borders. While Tehran’s ballistic missiles, nuclear ambitions and support for proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis dominate news headlines, the Islamic Republic has increasingly pursued activists, journalists and other perceived enemies on Western soil, often by outsourcing violence to local thugs and giving the regime distance and plausible deniability.
安全官员称这种做法为“跨国镇压”。英国国内安全机构MI5自2022年以来已追踪到与德黑兰有关的至少20起潜在致命阴谋。
Security officials call the practice “transnational repression.”Britain’s domestic security agency, MI5, has tracked at least 20 potentially deadly plots linked to Tehran since 2022.
Fardad Farahzad深知报道一个试图沉默其批评者的政权意味着什么。
Fardad Farahzad knows all too well what it means to report on a regime that seeks to silence its critics.
Farahzad出生于伊朗里海沿岸的港口城市阿恩扎勒，他在伦敦的BBC世界服务台开始了自己的广播事业，担任主播。如今，他在伊朗国际频道主持《24 With Fardad Farahzad》节目，该频道是一个主要的波斯语和英语媒体，以批评政权而闻名。
Born in Bandar Anzali, a port city on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast, Farahzad began his broadcasting career as a presenter at the BBC World Service in London. He now anchors 24 With Fardad Farahzad on Iran International, a major Persian- and English-language outlet critical of the regime.
2022年底，伊斯兰共和国情报部长将该新闻频道指定为“恐怖主义”组织。
The Islamic Republic’s intelligence minister designated the news channel as a “terrorist” organization in late 2022.
就在同一时间，2022年，随着伊朗爆发抗议活动——这源于政权对一名名叫Mahsa Amini的22岁伊朗库尔德女性的杀害——Farahzad正处于报道的前线。他当时并不知道，政权也在试图杀死他。
Around the same time, in 2022, as protests swept Iran following the regime’s killing of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini, Farahzad was on the frontlines of the coverage. What he did not know was that the regime was trying to kill him, too.
“我是在2023年一年后才得知此事，当时我正在以色列报道可怕的10月7日袭击事件，”他对《邮报》说。
“I learned about it a year later in 2023 while I was in Israel covering the horrific October 7 attacks,” he told The Post.
一位总部位于英国的媒体ITV新闻的调查记者发现了针对法拉扎德及其时任同事西玛·萨贝特的阴谋证据。这次暗杀计划代号为“婚礼”。法拉扎德未婚，被指定为“新郎”，萨贝特被指定为“新娘”。
An investigative journalist at the U.K.-based outlet ITV News had uncovered evidence of a plot against Farahzad and his then-colleague, Sima Sabet. The assassination plot was codenamed “The Wedding.”Farahzad, who isn’t married, was designated “The Groom” and Sabet “The Bride.”
“ITV记者来到我们办公室，打开笔记本电脑，里面有所有证据，”法拉扎德回忆道。“WhatsApp消息，以及那个本应暗杀我的人与下达攻击命令的人之间传递的笔记。”法拉扎德知道，为一个批评政权的媒体工作会带来风险，“但当你意识到政权会不惜一切在外国土地上暗杀你时，情况就不同了，”他对《邮报》说。
“The ITV reporter came to our office and opened his laptop and there he had all the evidence,” Farahzad recalled. “WhatsApp messages, notes that were communicated between the guy who was supposed to assassinate me and the people who were ordering the attack.”Farahzad knew that working for an outlet critical of the regime would come with risks, “but it’s something different when you realize the extent the regime will go to assassinate you on foreign soil,” he told The Post.
“这非常震惊，因为那是我第一次意识到这是一个非常周密的杀害我的阴谋，”他说。
“That was quite shocking because it was the first time I realized that this was a very well-planned plot to kill me,” he said.
这次暗杀计划已得到穆罕默德·雷扎·安萨里的批准，他是伊斯兰革命卫队司令，与海外暗杀行动有关联，包括未能刺杀前国家安全顾问约翰·博尔顿和前国务卿迈克·蓬佩奥的阴谋。
The assassination plot had been greenlit by Mohammad Reza Ansari, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander linked to overseas assassination operations, including the unsuccessful plots to assassinate former national security advisor John Bolton and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
自2020年1月美国无人机袭击杀死伊斯兰革命卫队将军卡西姆·苏莱曼尼以来，美国官员已发现针对美国人物的伊朗相关阴谋，包括试图刺杀特朗普总统及其最小的儿子巴伦·特朗普。
Since the January 2020 US drone strike that killed IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, American officials have uncovered Iran-linked plots targeting US figures, including attempts to assassinate President Trump and his youngest son, Barron Trump.
伊朗国际电视台和其他批评德黑兰神权政府的波斯语广播机构，如BBC波斯语频道，长期面临该政权的威胁。随着这些威胁升级，伊朗国际电视台于2023年2月遵循伦敦大都会警察的建议，将其广播业务从伦敦迁至华盛顿特区。对伊朗国际电视台记者的威胁并未随着法拉扎德而结束。
Iran International and other Persian-language broadcasters critical of Tehran’s theocratic government like BBC Persian had long faced threats by the regime. As those threats escalated, Iran International moved its broadcasting operations from London to Washington, DC, in February 2023, following advice from London’s Metropolitan Police. The threats to Iran International reporters didn’t end with Farahzad.
2024年3月，他的同事普里亚·泽拉蒂在西南伦敦他家附近走向汽车时，腿部被刺了三刀。至少有两名罗马尼亚公民参与了这次袭击。审理此案的法官得出结论认为，这是国家赞助的行为，是代表伊斯兰共和国进行的。
In March 2024, his colleague, Pouria Zeraati, was stabbed in the leg three times as he walked to his car near his home in southwest London. At least two Romanian nationals were involved in the attack. The judge presiding over the case concluded that it was state-sponsored and carried out on behalf of the Islamic Republic.
当被问及2026年世界上是否还有伊斯兰共和国无法触及的地方时，法拉赫扎德直言不讳。“其实不然，”他说。
Asked whether anywhere in the world was beyond the Islamic Republic’s reach in 2026, Farahzad was blunt. “Not really,” he said.
“忘掉伊朗政权吧，”他补充道，“但如果马尔代夫政府想杀死你，他们也能杀死你。国家拥有巨大的权力。它们享有外交豁免权。它们拥有财政资源。而马尔代夫只是一个小国，更别说伊朗政权了，伊朗政权在欧洲有着悠久的恐吓和杀害异见者的历史。”然而，法拉赫扎德认为该政权在国内可能比表面上更脆弱。
“Forget about the Iranian regime,” he added, “but if the government of Maldives wants to kill you, they can kill you. States have enormous power. They have diplomatic immunity. They have financial resources. And that’s a tiny state, let alone the Iranian regime, which has a long history of intimidation and killing its dissidents in Europe.”Yet Farahzad believes the regime may be more vulnerable than it appears at home.
“随着霍尔木兹海峡的封锁持续，伊朗输出石油的生命线正在减弱，”他对《邮报》说。
“With the blockade continuing in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s lifeline of exporting oil is diminished,” he told The Post.
“伊朗内部暗藏着许多火种，”他补充道，“我认为人民只需要一点火花，就能再次在伊朗引发起义，尤其是在经济形势变得更加艰难的时候。”乔纳森·哈鲁诺夫是一名英国作家，也是《UNscripted with Jonathan Harounoff》节目的主持人。
“There is a lot of fire underneath in Iran,” he added, “and I think the people need one spark to see another uprising again in Iran, especially as the economic situation becomes more difficult.”Jonathan Harounoff is a British author and the host of “UNscripted with Jonathan Harounoff.”