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SYDNEY: Australia expelled Iran’s ambassador on Tuesday, accusing the country of being behind antisemitic arson attacks in Melbourne and Sydney.
It marks the first time Australia has expelled an ambassador since World War II.
Intelligence services reached a “deeply disturbing conclusion” that Iran directed at least two antisemitic attacks, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
Tehran was behind a fire attack on a kosher cafe, the Lewis Continental Cafe, in Sydney’s Bondi suburb in October 2024, the prime minister told a news conference.
It also directed an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024, the prime minister said, citing the intelligence findings.
No physical injuries were reported in the two attacks.
“These were extraordinary and dangerous acts of aggression orchestrated by a foreign nation on Australian soil,” Albanese said.
“They were attempts to undermine social cohesion and sow discord in our community. It is totally unacceptable.”
Australia declared Iranian ambassador Ahmad Sadeghi “persona non grata” and ordered him and three other officials to leave the country within seven days.
Australia also withdrew its own ambassador to Iran and suspended the embassy’s operations in Tehran.
The Australian diplomats were all “safe in a third country,” the prime minister said.
Australia will also legislate to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, he said.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong said it was the first time in the post war period that Australia had expelled an ambassador.
Australia would maintain diplomatic lines with Iran to advance the interests of Australians, Wong said.

Australia has had an embassy in Tehran since 1968.
Though Australians have been advised not to travel through Iran since 2020, Wong said that Canberra’s ability to provide consular assistance was now “extremely limited.”
“I do know that many Australians have family connections in Iran, but I urge any Australian who might be considering traveling to Iran, please do not do so,” she said.
“Our message is, if you are an Australian in Iran, leave now if it is safe to do so.”
Australia’s spy chief Michael Burgess said a “painstaking” intelligence service investigation had uncovered links between the antisemitic attacks and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The probe found that the Guard directed at least two and “likely” more attacks on Jewish interests in Australia, said Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.
The Revolutionary Guard, the ideological arm of Iran’s military, used a complex web of proxies to hide its involvement in the attacks, he said.
Iran’s embassy in Australia and its diplomats were not involved, however, the spy chief said.
The Australian intelligence service is still investigating possible Iranian involvement in a number of other attacks, Burgess said.
“Iran’s actions are utterly unacceptable. They put lives at risk. They terrified the community, and they tore at our social fabric,” he said.
“Iran and its proxies, literally and figuratively, lit the matches and fanned the flames.”

SUMENEP, Indonesia: Hundreds of children in Indonesia lined up for free measles shots Monday as authorities rolled out a vaccination campaign in response to an outbreak that has caused 17 deaths.
More than 2,000 children were infected in East Java province over the past eight months, according to officials who said 16 of the 17 deaths occurred in Sumenep district. Sixteen patients were not immunized and one did not complete the vaccines, according to data from Sumenep District Health Agency.
Indonesia has reported previous outbreaks of the highly infectious disease, mostly driven by gaps in vaccination coverage in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.
A major outbreak occurred in the easternmost province of Papua in 2018, causing dozens of deaths. That year, the Indonesian Ulema Council reported the measles and rubella vaccine used for mass immunization programs contained pork. Use of the vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India was permitted until a halal vaccine without pork could be found.
Just 72 percent of Indonesia’s 22 million children under 5 received the measles vaccine last year, and in some provinces, vaccination rates were below 50 percent, according to data from Statistics Indonesia.
Indonesian authorities have called on residents and community and religious leaders to support immunization efforts. The mass vaccination in Sumenep is targeting 78,000 children from 9 months to 6 years old.
“Otherwise, this disease, measles, will spread further among our children. It will be even more fatal in the future,” said Imam Hasyim, deputy chief of Sumenep district.
Globally, the World Health Organization says 84 percent of children received the first dose of measles vaccine last year, and 76 percent had received two doses. But experts say measles vaccine rates need to reach 95 percent to prevent outbreaks.
WHO noted that 60 countries reported big measles outbreaks last year.