Iranian citizens in the Netherlands are particularly at risk of persecution by the authorities in their home country, Dutch security service AIVD has said in a report on foreign intervention, which will be discussed by MPs on Thursday.

The regime in Tehran is accused of intimidation and sometimes murder of political opponents around the world, and last week in the US, two men were convicted of an attempt on the life of an Iranian-American journalist.

In Britain too, the number of attacks has soared to “unprecedented levels’, British security service MI5 has said.

The AIVD is not giving out figures, but the situation for dissidents was deemed serious enough to merit a dedicated police team to deal with foreign intervention.

According to Iranians in the Netherlands protection is still lacking, particularly since the failed attack on Iranian activist Siamak Tadayon Tahmasbi in Haarlem last summer.

The threat from Iran dates from well before then, with the murders of Iranian activists in 2015 and 2017 thought to have been ordered by the regime.

“It’s the modus operandi we are familiar with from organised crime. You remain at a distance by hiring a hitman via a platform, which obscures who is behind the hit,” terrorism expert Edwin Bakker told broadcaster NOS.

That strategy works because Iran has never been indicted for its role in several murders around the world.

In Tahmasbi’s case, two of the attackers were arrested, one of whom was wanted in Spain, where he allegedly tried to kill Iran critic and former politician Alejo Vidal-Quadras.

The Spanish justice department is trying to prove the link between the attacker and Iran, but the Dutch prosecution office will not do the same. “They are fairly sure that this would not be successful,” Bakker said.

Tahmasbi is disappointed about the decision, saying it “makes no sense to arrest someone who has just tried to kill a person and not ask why that person had to die,” he said.

In a reaction, the Iranian embassy said the accusations are  “politically motivated” and “part of a sustained slander campaign to undermine Iran’s international standing”.

Thursday’s debate on the subject will include the start of a central registration point for threats to dissidents.