Interrogations of rebels detained in Chad uncovered an Iran-backed network recruiting and training Africans to target Western and Israeli interests, Argentina's Infobae online newspaper reported citing Chadian officials.
Chad dismantled two networks accused of being tied to Iran, the report said quoting Chadian security forces.
Officials described a strategy of infiltration, indoctrination and promises of support for coups aimed at expanding Tehran’s influence in Africa.
According to Infobae, the interrogations detailed how the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) allegedly recruit and train African citizens for operations targeting Western and Israeli interests.
In 2023, Israel asked visiting Chadian President Mahamat Deby to reduce the influence of Iran and Hezbollah in Africa’s Sahel region, four years after the Muslim-majority country in central Africa restored its relations with the Jewish State.
Déby visited Israel to open Chad’s new embassy in the country, where he also made a rare stop at Mossad headquarters, a signal that the renewed ties carry national-security weight.
The alleged push for influence in Chad is not an isolated case, as Iran has been reportedly sending military equipment to Chad's eastern neighbor Sudan whose army is fighting against the UAE-backed Rapid Support Forces.
Iran's alleged recruitments in Chad
The Infobae report says one of those detained by Chadian authorities admitted to investigators that he had been recruited by Iran's intelligence ministry. The detaine, identified as Ali Abdoulaye Mahamat, said the process began after studying at the Al-Mustafa International University in Iran's Qom.
Mahamat told authorities he met Iranian intelligence officers in hotels in 2022 and 2023. He said he was instructed to identify American, Israeli and French activity, recruit new members and map links between local rebel groups and Iranian handlers, according to the report.
He also described an intelligence officer named Karim, who he said escorted him to hotels, restaurants and secret locations and confiscated his phone. Mahamat told officials Karim demanded detailed information on foreign military movements and intelligence services operating in Chad.
Pressed by his handlers, Mahamat said he eventually provided names of Chadian intelligence officers and individuals allegedly in contact with Israelis.
Chad’s authorities say another detainee, Abdoulaye Ahmat Sheikh Alamine, confessed to being recruited by the Quds Force. During his interrogation, he said the cell he belonged to was directed by Department 400, which operates in Iraq, Africa and other regions.
He told investigators he received weapons training — including Kalashnikovs, RPGs and KFX systems — and traveled to Iraq under the guise of religious trips, where the group met Iranian contacts and trained alongside Shia militias, according to the report.
Mahamat also told investigators that MOIS officers posing as Iranian Foreign Ministry representatives instructed him to collect information on international presence in Chad, recruit assets for military training and assess the needs of rebel groups such as FACT.
According to Infobae, Chad’s security services say the revelations show a coordinated Iranian approach combining religious indoctrination, military training and promises of political power in exchange for attacks on Western and Israeli interests.
Chadian officials told the outlet their operations disrupted, at least temporarily, what they describe as Tehran’s efforts to expand influence and destabilize the region.
Last month, Iran International revealed an alleged Iranian plot targeting the Israeli embassy in Senegal and Israeli personnel in Uganda, which were thwarted by Mossad.
The operation was directed by the Quds Force, the IRGC’s overseas arm, which relied on a proxy network of Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals based in Iran, alongside locally recruited operatives in Africa — many of whom were said to have been enlisted through social media.
Ali Akbar Velayati's remarks on X were a rare sharp public rebuke to one of Iran's Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf, with whom Tehran has long feuded but has shifted toward detente in recent years as pressure from the United States and Israel mounted.
The Southern Transitional Council, a separatist force in Yemen which has long been backed by Abu Dhabi, jolted the stalemated conflict in that country this week.
Their surprise march on oil-rich southeastern territory aims to strengthen their bid to revive an independent state of South Yemen.
The armed Houthi movement, a foe of the STC, is not directly challenged by the latest fighting but their patrons in Tehran appear rattled.
"The government of the UAE must be asked: What were you doing in Yemen?" Velayati wrote. "Are you also interested in claiming ownership of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait? Why did you occupy the island of Socotra, and what was its connection to America’s maritime ambitions? Do you also claim ownership over this island and over the Strait of Hormuz?"
Velayati is a veteran stalwart of high level decision-making circles in the Islamic theocracy and his statements are widely viewed to reflect Khamenei's thinking.
The oil-rich Emirates, a tourism and trade hub, sees itself as a rising regional power and has backed allies in conflicts marring Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.
It maintains a military presence on the remote Arabian Sea island of Socotra and has economic interests in ports in Djibouti and the breakaway republic of Somaliland.
Joining a regional conflagration pitting Iran's armed allies against Israel, the Houthis in Yemen launched attacks on international shipping for two years until a Gaza ceasefire in October in the Red and Arabian seas connected by the Bab al-Mandab strait.
The United States and its Persian Gulf allies viewed the attacks as a bid to expand Iranian hegemony in the strategic chokepoint leading to the Suez Canal.
Washington, in an annual national security assessment released earlier on Friday, downplayed the threat from Iran after US attacks on its nuclear facilities in June but vowed to keep the Straight of Hormuz open.
Tehran officials have repeatedly vowed to close the waterway, through which much of the world's energy exports from both Iran and the Arabian Peninsula flows, in the event of a conflict.
'Fantastical transnational empire'
Velayati went on to accuse Abu Dhabi of killing Muslims in a bid to build a regional empire in connivance with a Western colonial agenda.
"The blood of tens of thousands of Muslims in Yemen — and now in Sudan — has been spilled as a result of your expansionist policies. It must now be asked: What does the UAE want from Sudan," he said. Will you answer whether you are cooperating with Britain in Sudan or not?
"Why, in the view of many analysts, do your actions raise suspicions of an attempt to build a 'fantastical transnational empire'?" he added.
Tehran and Abu Dhabi have long been at loggerheads over three Persian Gulf islands controlled by Iran since 1971 but claimed by the United Arab Emirates.
Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa islands have been held by Tehran since they were seized by the Shah after the withdrawal of British forces from the region. Voices across the fractured Iranian political spectrum reject UAE claims, which are backed by Europe and the United States.
"Are your repeated empty claims regarding the Iranian islands also part of this cooperation with colonial powers?" Velayati continued. "How can anyone claim ownership of Abu Musa, which belonged to Iran thousands of years before the formation of the United Arab Emirates?"
"The patience of the Iranian people is not unlimited."