Australia has severed diplomatic relations with Iran after its intelligence service concluded that Tehran directed at least two antisemitic arson attacks on Australian soil, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Tuesday.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) determined that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps orchestrated the attacks through a network of overseas facilitators and local coordinators, Albanese told reporters in Canberra. Iran’s ambassador to Australia, Ahmad Sadeghi, has been expelled and all Australian diplomats posted in Tehran have been withdrawn to a third country.
“ASIO has now gathered enough credible intelligence to reach a deeply disturbing conclusion,” Albanese said. “The Iranian government directed at least two of these attacks. Iran has sought to disguise its involvement but ASIO assesses it was behind the attacks.”
Intelligence Links IRGC to Attacks
ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said the IRGC directed the attacks through “a series of overseas cut-out facilitators to coordinators that found their way to tasking Australians.” He confirmed no Iranian diplomats in Australia were directly involved in the operations.
The attacks targeted the Lewis Continental Kitchen, a kosher food company in Sydney, in October last year, and the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December. Burgess said Iran was responsible for a dangerous escalation in October when antisemitic incidents shifted from hate speech to direct targeting of businesses and places of worship.
Two Australian men have been charged in connection with the Melbourne synagogue attack. A 24-year-old from Melbourne was charged with arson causing danger to life, while a second man, 20, faces similar charges.
Geopolitical Ripple Effects
The diplomatic rupture comes at a highly sensitive moment for Middle East tensions. Iran is already under sweeping new US sanctions unveiled by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday, targeting nearly 60 Iran-linked entities. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global oil passes, remains partially disrupted six months into the US-Iran conflict.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei rejected the allegations, calling the Australian decision “a compensation for the criticism that the Australians had against the Zionist regime.” The move followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rebuke of Albanese last week over Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state.
The Iranian government directed at least two of these attacks. These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil.
The severing of ties adds another layer of diplomatic isolation for Tehran, which faces simultaneous pressure from US economic sanctions, regional military tensions, and now the loss of relations with a major Pacific nation. Analysts said the decision was driven by domestic security concerns rather than alignment with Israel, noting that Albanese had previously resisted calls to expel the Iranian envoy.
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