Three-minute read
When a state-sponsored terrorist plot collapses in court, the next battlefield is narrative. And in the clerical regime’s communications playbook, the fastest way to change the subject is to change the costume.
That is the subtext of a prison interview given by Amir Saadouni and Nasimeh Naami—the Belgian-based couple convicted and sentenced to 18 years and stripped of Belgian nationality for their role in a foiled 2018 bombing attempt targeting a major Iranian opposition gathering near Paris. In an interview with the Belgian outlet Humo, the couple offers a defense that belongs less to criminal law than to political theater: the “bomb” was allegedly not a bomb at all, but “fireworks.” Or, in the updated version: a bomb so “dangerous” it was essentially designed to kill them instead of anyone else.
It is an almost perfect propaganda haiku—three lines long and none of them compatible with the other.
The #Iranian regime aired an interview with Asadollah Assadi, its convicted diplomat #terrorist, who was jailed in Belgium for a foiled 2018 bomb plot in Paris. This move seeks to bolster its hostage-taking diplomacy for both domestic and international audiences. pic.twitter.com/SIhC5faqkK
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 6, 2024
“It Wasn’t a Bomb. It Was a Firecracker.”
Start with the most familiar move: downgrade the crime. In the excerpts, Naami claims: “We thought it was fireworks… just to scare people with a few loud noises and smoke,” adding the now-viral absurdity that “the bomb wasn’t a bomb,” it was effectively a “firecracker.”
That line is not merely a personal excuse; it is a political instrument. If the device is “just noise,” then the plot is “just misunderstanding,” and a state-directed terror operation becomes a lovers’ tragedy with bad instructions.
But the same account also insists the device was made of TATP, “so sensitive” that it could detonate from heat or movement—while simultaneously claiming it was not meant to harm anyone but the couriers themselves. The regime’s storytellers are asking the public to accept, at the same time, that this was (1) harmless, (2) lethally unstable, and (3) never intended to kill anyone except the people transporting it. A narrative that contradictory is not a defense; it is an attempt to exhaust the audience into shrugging.
All the pieces of evidence suggest Iran's terrorist diplomat Assadi commanded this bombing operation. The highest authorities of the regime ordered & approved the 2018 bombing plot against the Free Iran gathering of the NCRI #ShutDownIranTerrorEmbassies https://t.co/oqYPdTN6K8 https://t.co/y6U4R3wF5L pic.twitter.com/q8ymQuSciC
— Dowlat Nowrouzi (@DowlatNowrouzi) December 3, 2020
From “Opposition Supporter” to “Royalist”—On Command
Then comes the more revealing pivot: identity engineering.
In the same excerpts, when asked about returning to Iran, Naami answers: “As soon as the ayatollahs are overthrown and Reza Pahlavi comes to power.” She adds: “Pahlavi is the son of the last Shah,” and describes a dream of “free elections” and a “return to what it was before 1979.”
This is not a casual political preference; it is a strategic rebranding. The clerical regime understands that Reza Pahlavi functions as a convenient distraction: a familiar surname, a simplified story, and a false binary—mullahs versus monarchists—that crowds out the democratic alternative that has paid for its organizing with prison, torture, and graves.
So, when convicted operatives suddenly present themselves as enthusiastic royalists, it is less a conversion than a tactic: attach yourself to the loudest, most polarizing symbol available, and you accomplish two goals at once:
- you muddy the terror case with political noise, and
- you intensify opposition fragmentation by feeding culture-war instincts inside exile communities.
The regime does not need Reza Pahlavi to win power; it needs him to complicate the alternative.
Tehran’s core strategic fear is not foreign militaries or press statements. It is an organized domestic uprising paired with an opposition capable of translating street energy into political transition. That is why the regime invests in:
- infiltrating exile networks,
- criminalizing organized resistance at home, and
- producing “alternatives” that are politically destabilizing.
Iran's diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi was released by the Belgian government in the context of a shameful deal with the Iranian regime.
He led an extensive network of terrorism and espionage in Europe.
Therefore, we are reposting our article on how his operatives used… pic.twitter.com/yzLFaNwtzN— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 30, 2023
The Stakes Are Real
There is a grim comedy in watching convicted bomb couriers attempt a rebrand as freedom-loving monarchists while insisting the explosive was basically party décor. In Tehran’s version of events, the diplomatic pouch is just a lunchbox, a half-kilo of TATP is just a sparkler, and an attempted mass-casualty attack is just a misunderstanding—now featuring a cameo by the “crown prince” as the feel-good ending.
But the stakes are not comedic. The stakes are the safety of European public space, the integrity of asylum systems, and the lives of dissidents targeted across borders.
If the international community want to reduce Tehran’s operational reach, they should treat these narrative pivots as part of the same enterprise as the plot itself. That means:
- Do not launder terror narratives as “human-interest” contrition without confronting courtroom findings head-on.
- Do not amplify regime-friendly binaries that erase democratic alternatives and shrink Iran’s future to two dictatorships.
- Do not confuse noise for pluralism: manufactured polarization is not political diversity; it is a countermeasure.
The clerical dictatorship survives by making the truth feel complicated and the alternatives feel impossible. The “fireworks” story is meant to make terrorism feel ambiguous. The sudden royalism is meant to make opposition feel ungovernable. And the real objective is to keep the world staring at costumes while the regime keeps building the stage.