'Iranian spies' targeted in German police searches Published duration 16 January 2018

image copyright AFP image caption German authorities did not reveal where exactly the raids took place

German special police teams have searched flats linked to 10 suspected Iranian state spies.

The searches were triggered by German counter-intelligence. The Iranians, still at large, are suspected of spying on Israeli and/or Jewish targets.

Germany's Focus news said the raids took place in Berlin, Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg.

In 1997 a Berlin verdict linked top Iranian politicians to the killing of four Iranian Kurdish dissidents.

German investigators concluded that the assassination at Berlin's Mykonos restaurant in 1992 was the work of Iranian secret service agents.

Western intelligence officials accuse Iran's secretive Quds Force of carrying out assassinations abroad. The Iranians in the latest German case are thought to be Quds Force agents, Focus reports.

The force carries out special operations abroad for Iran's Revolutionary Guards and has links to Lebanese Hezbollah militants and the Palestinian Hamas movement.

Investigators have not yet ordered any arrests in connection with the police raids.