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Australia has given Iran’s ambassador seven days to leave the country after alleging the country’s government directed antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.<\/p>\n Intelligence services linked Iran to an arson attack on a cafe in Sydney in October last year, and another on a synagogue in Melbourne in December, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Albanese added the two incidents were “attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community”.<\/p>\n Ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and three other officials have been ordered to leave Australia, which has withdrawn its own diplomats from Tehran. Iran has “absolutely rejected” the allegations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman added the decision to expel their envoy was “driven by Australia’s domestic policies”.<\/p>\n However, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) chief Mike Burgess said his teams had uncovered links “between the alleged crimes and the commanders in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC”, following a “painstaking”, months-long investigation.<\/p>\n “They’re just using cut-outs, including people who are criminals and members of organised crime gangs to do their bidding or direct their bidding,” Mr Burgess told reporters.<\/p>\n He added that IRGC had “used a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement” in the attacks on the Lewis Continental Kitchen in Sydney on 20 October, and Melbourne’s Adass Israel Synagogue<\/a> on 6 December.<\/p>\n Australia’s intelligence services had also found evidence Iran was likely to be behind other antisemitic incidents in Australia, which has seen attacks on Jewish schools, homes, vehicles and synagogues since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, Iran’s ally, and the ensuing war in Gaza.<\/p>\n In the same period of time, civil society group the Islamophobic Register has also recorded a rise in Islamophobic incidents.<\/p>\n