Reportedly acting on a tip from the Mossad, Belgian police discovered and arrested a married Iranian couple in Antwerp who had a powerful bomb in their car. The same day, German police arrested Assadollah Assadi, a member of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Vienna, who had provided the bomb and ordered the couple to use it to attack a rally being held by an Iranian opposition group in the French town of Villepinte—an event that prominent American political figures were expected to attend. Struan Stevenson comments:

Despite clear evidence that Iranian embassies in Europe are now used as terrorist bomb factories, EU lawmakers on July 5 nevertheless approved plans for the European Investment Bank to do business with the theocratic regime in Iran in a desperate bid to keep the 2015 nuclear deal alive. The EU appeasers seem to think that if you keep throwing steaks to the tiger it will become a vegetarian.

Opponents of the regime inside Iran are regularly imprisoned, tortured, and hanged, often in public. An estimated 100,000 political prisoners have been murdered since the ayatollahs seized control of Iran in 1979. Outside the country, the mullahs’ preferred option is assassination or terrorist attacks. They have trained Ministry of Intelligence and Security agents implanted in every European embassy. Their job is to track down and eliminate political dissidents or enemies of the fundamentalist regime. . . .

Although the Iranian terrorist plot was foiled on the eve of a visit to Austria by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Austrian president went ahead with the meeting in a sickening act of appeasement. In a blind panic over President Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, Iran is desperately trying to bully and cajole the EU into making up any shortfall caused by renewed sanctions, and Europe seems tragically happy to comply. . . .

Europe needs to wake up. Iranian embassies should immediately be closed across the EU and their diplomatic staff expelled. The days of kowtowing to this medieval and murderous regime are over. Europe must show that we support the Iranian people in their ongoing uprising and their bid to end the tyranny that they have suffered for four decades. But for the vigilance of the Belgian Security and Intelligence Service and the Belgian and German police, dozens of innocent people would have been maimed and killed in Villepinte. Murderous attempts of this magnitude can no longer be ignored.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.