On November 7, 2025, the Daily Mail reported on an Iranian assassination plot against Israel’s ambassador to Mexico. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) orchestrated the plot, according to the report, under the leadership of two agents, Hassan Izadi and Majid Dastjani Farahani, the latter of whom is wanted by the FBI for recruiting operatives for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security in the US. Izadi and Farahani remain elusive, but their local enablers and regional networks remain in place, including Seyed Mojtaba Hosseini Nejad, a representative for Al Mustafa International University in Venezuela.
Al Mustafa International University is an Iranian religious school that the US Treasury Department sanctioned in 2020, and Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sanctioned in 2022 for its role in spreading propaganda and colluding with the IRGC. It has a generous yearly budget provided directly by the Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader, a campus hosting thousands of foreign students trained by polyglot teachers, and numerous foreign branches, including in Caracas.
Based on photos published by the Daily Mail, Nejad was present at the meeting where the plot against Israel’s ambassador to Mexico was hatched and likely served as the host of the gathering. This role comprises providing material support for terrorism, a sanctionable activity. The Daily Mail report, which published two photos of the main plotters at a gathering in a Caracas apartment, alleged that Izadi used Caracas, Venezuela, as a base of operations.
Nejad’s involvement in the meeting would not be the first time that Al Mustafa International University was implicated in a terror plot or ties to terrorist organizations:
- Mohsen Rabbani, the Iranian cleric implicated in the 1994 bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA), a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, today heads Al Mustafa’s Islam Oriente, the university’s department that caters to Spanish and Portuguese speakers.
- The Iraqi branch of Al Mustafa is closely tied to the US-sanctioned terror organization Kataib Hezbollah (KH), with two leaders of the Shiite militia also serving as officials at Al Mustafa.
- A Tajik graduate of Al Mustafa, Mohamad Ali Burhanov, was implicated in terror plots against Israelis in Central Asia.
- Another member of the Al Mustafa network, a Brazilian convert and anti-Israel activist, was in close contact with members of the Hezbollah terror cell implicated in Brazil’s Trapiche investigation—which, in November 2023, uncovered a Hezbollah plot to recruit Brazilian nationals to carry out attacks against Jewish targets in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia.
- The Jamestown Foundation also recently revealed the role of a Thai professor at Al Mustafa in mediating Hamas’s release of Thai hostages held in Gaza through his ties with the Iranian regime.
Despite the US and Canada sanctioning Al Mustafa University, plots and terror links implicating the school keep emerging. Sanctions have not prevented branches of the organization from continuing to operate globally, including in Venezuela, where Al Mustafa has had a permanent presence since at least 2008, when Mr. Hosseini Nejad—an Iranian national and a permanent resident of Venezuela—signed a cooperation agreement with a local Catholic University.
Much of Al Mustafa’s activity in Venezuela is public and focused on proselytism, propaganda, and indoctrination, including sending Venezuelan recruits to Iran. However, Nejad’s presence alongside IRGC members tasked with carrying out an assassination plot in Mexico reveals the role Al Mustafa and its emissaries play as terror enablers in the Western Hemisphere, and why Venezuela matters for Iranian strategy in the region.
As Jason Brodsky of the nonprofit United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI) recently wrote, “Venezuela has long served as a launchpad for Iranian operations to establish a foothold in South America.” Iranian operations in Caracas are a cover for intelligence gathering, terror plotting, and regional subversion. A permanent presence in Venezuela, alongside dozens of Islamic Centers run by Al Mustafa graduates in most countries south of the Rio Grande, means that the IRGC can rely on and leverage a network of individuals and infrastructure to plan terror attacks.
Given Nejad’s affiliation with a sanctioned entity and a report indicating he likely provided material support to terrorism, he may be a candidate for a US designation. And while his role in the reported terror plot against Israel’s ambassador to Mexico remains to be seen, he is Al Mustafa’s agent in Caracas.
Additional Al Mustafa operations outside Iran may similarly qualify for US sanctions—first and foremost in Latin America, but also where Al Mustafa has a campus and is actively recruiting locals to join its ranks. The organization has numerous foreign campuses within and outside of the Middle East, including Abidjan, Berlin, Baghdad, Johannesburg, and London. Its graduates, in turn, have established mosques and cultural centers across the globe, where they propagate the teachings of their alma mater, promote regime propaganda, and recruit converts. Such centers exist and thrive across Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and North America, despite the university’s track record as a terror front.
