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BERLIN—In mid-2015, German prosecutors say, Iran set in motion a spying operation that targeted a prominent pro-Israeli politician and a Jewish newspaper in Berlin.

Details of the alleged plot—which authorities said appeared aimed at gathering information for “possible attacks” on them—emerged during a trial in Berlin’s highest court that ended late last month with the conviction of a 31-year-old Pakistani man, Syed Mustafa Haider, on espionage charges.

Prosecutors said Mr. Haider was guided by a person believed by German intelligence to be part of the Quds Force, an arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. He spent months tracking Reinhold Robbe, a former lawmaker who was then chairman of the German-Israeli Society, they said.

Mr. Haider, who was sentenced to four years and three months in prison, denied the charges and has instructed his attorneys to appeal the verdict against him, his lawyers said. The lawyers declined to comment further.

The Iranian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that Tehran “officially and categorically denied any link with this issue.” The embassy blamed “enemies of diplomacy” for “using any possibility and means to advance their bellicose goals.”

No attacks have taken place against the objects of Mr. Haider’s surveillance.

The revelations come at an awkward time for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Ms. Merkel, under pressure from German companies that want to do business in Iran, has been resisting U.S. President Donald Trump’s tougher stance toward Tehran.

The government said it would wait until Mr. Haider’s appeal has been heard before commenting.

Based on evidence gathered by Germany’s police and the country’s domestic intelligence agency, prosecutors said Mr. Haider gathered 600 photos, 32 videos and other information detailing Mr. Robbe’s movements between July and October of 2015.

In addition to his work on Mr. Robbe, he was asked to compile dossiers on the Berlin headquarters of Mr. Robbe’s Social Democratic Party, the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper and a Jewish professor in Paris, Daniel Rouach, they said.

Prosecutors alleged the material was “meant to enable his intelligence employer to establish a direct way to the person under observation as they prepared an attack.”

They noted that the spying focused on what “safety precautions” were in place to protect the targets under surveillance and how to “navigate” in locations they were likely to visit.

The court didn’t publish a written verdict. A spokeswoman said it found prosecutors’ case “fundamentally convincing.”

Mr. Haider, a student studying engineering in Germany, received instructions from his alleged Quds Force handler, identified only by the initial M., via WhatsApp in mid-2015, prosecutors said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Muhammad Abu Rumman, a researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan and a writer for the Jordanian daily Al-Ghad, published an article highlighting 10 notable Western scientific achievements from 2016, including the detection of gravitational waves, which were predicted by Albert Einstein, and the discovery of a ninth planet in the solar system, and compared them to 10 notable “achievements” in the Arab world during that year, including the perfection of the car bomb, the “development” of the concept of lone wolves and barrel bombs, and the destruction of archaeological sites. Abu Rumman implicitly invites readers to compare these achievements and draw their own conclusions.

The following are excerpts from the article:[1]

Muhammad Abu Rumman (ikhwansyria.com)

“The BBC website published the 10 biggest scientific achievements of 2016, which include: the discovery of the gravitational waves that Einstein discussed 100 years ago; the arrival of the [Juno] probe to Jupiter; the discovery of a ninth [planet] in the solar system nicknamed ‘Nine’;[2] the discovery of a 99 million-year-old dinosaur tail preserved in amber; the finding of the largest prime number [yet discovered], which has 22 million digits; the development of a tiny disc that can store 360 terabytes of data and last for 14 billion years; stem cell injections for patients who suffered [a stroke due to] blood clots in order to restore motor function; the discovery of a new type of blind cave-dwelling fish that can climb walls; the first landing by a rocket [at sea after completing its mission]; and transplanting a chip in a paralyzed patient’s brain, enabling him to move his fingers.

“Now, let us think of the prominent Arab achievements, both scientific and non-scientific, during 2016:

“1. The car bomb tactic, which ISIS and Jabhat Al-Nusra excel at, which transforms basic primary materials into a devastating mechanism of killing, without the need to develop inventions and carry out complex scientific research as is done in the West. It is enough to pack a large amount of explosives into a car, don an explosive vest, and embed yourself in the ranks of the ‘enemy’ in order to injure and kill dozens and cause horrid destruction. ISIS has announced that, according to a recent study [it conducted], in the recent period there have been 1,112 martyrdom operations, all of whose perpetrators obviously died, and that during that period, they killed a large number of people on the other side.