Last week, Greek police, with help from the Mossad, arrested two men planning an imminent attack on a Chabad House-cum-kosher-restaurant in Athens. Although the terrorists were recruited and supported by Iran, the arrestees and fellow members of their cell were all Pakistani Shiites. Oshrit Birvadker provides some background:

The foiled terror plot in Greece is yet another example of the thriving collaboration between Tehran and Islamabad and how the ayatollah regime has been using Pakistani terror cells across Europe.

Pakistan is not just a safe haven for terrorist groups, it also manages to outsource its most selling product: terrorism. The Pakistanis have a wide network of people across Europe, including labor migrants and organizations helping fund their activity.

Iran has good ties with Pakistan’s spy agencies. Although the conventional wisdom is that the two countries are rivals because of their diverging Islamic character, the two have managed to maintain productive collaboration when it comes to fighting the insurgents in Balochistan [a territory that sits astride the Iran-Pakistan border].

Pakistan and Iran are close on a whole host of issues, including Kashmir. Pakistani-sponsored terrorist groups see Israel as their ultimate enemy despite the lack of direct hostilities. This tactical alliance between Tehran and Islamabad against Israel and the Jews is a very reasonable outcome. My familiarity with Iranian conduct suggests that Tehran wants Jewish blood to be shed, and is willing to collude with any organization that is willing to help, even if the perpetrators are amateurs.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.