Australia expels Iran ambassador over anti-Semitic attacks on restaurant and synagogue

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Tehran is to blame for two incidents in Melbourne and Sydney

Australia is to expel Iran's ambassador over Tehran's involvement in two anti-Semitic attacks in Melbourne and Sydney.

Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi and three other officials have been given seven days to leave the country. It is the first expulsion of an ambassador from Australia since the Second World War, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation had linked Tehran to attacks on a restaurant in Sydney and a synagogue in Melbourne.

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“ASIO has gathered enough credible intelligence to reach a deeply disturbing conclusion,” he said, referring to the country's main domestic spy agency. “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.”

Iran rejected the accusation and vowed reciprocal action. "The accusation that has been made is absolutely rejected," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a weekly press conference, that "any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction".

He stated that Tehran believed the decision was rooted in "domestic developments" in Australia.

Australia will also legislate to list Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, Mr Albanese added.

Since the outbreak of Israel's war on Gaza, Australian homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles have been the target of vandalism and arson. In October last year, there was an arson attack on the Lewis Continental Kitchen, a kosher takeaway and catering business, in Bondi, Sydney.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leaves the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne after a firebombing in December. AP

In December, the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne was the target of an arson attack. Police charged a man in July and arrested a second suspect this month. “These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Mr Albanese said.

The expulsion of the Iranian diplomat comes amid a growing rift between Australia and Israel, after Canberra announced it would recognise a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Mr Albanese of “betraying” Australia's Jewish community, one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors per capita.

“While anti-Semitism is raging in Australia, including manifestations of violence against Jews and Jewish institutions, the Australian government is choosing to fuel it,” Mr Netanyahu said on X after Canberra denied a visa to far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman.