One of the seven Iranian men arrested in the UK and believed to be part of terrorism plots to target specific premises across England has “close links” to Iran’s clerical regime, according to Iranian sources in Britain who spoke to the Telegraph newspaper.
The sources told the British newspaper that the man had “close connections to the regime in Tehran,” was “very well connected” and belonged to a family which “runs prominent businesses in Iran,” according to a May 5 report in the Telegraph.
The men were arrested on May 3 as part of two counter-terrorism operations involving two alleged terrorism plots. Members of the UK’s Special Forces assisted police officers as arrests were carried out in Manchester, Rochdale, Stockport, Swindon and West London.
Eight men have been arrested so far as part of ongoing investigations which include the collection of evidence at different sites across the country. UK Officials said the two plots were separate. However, a senior official briefed on the threat said British law enforcement was now trying to determine whether the same entity had directed both plots, according to a May 5 report by NBC news.
UK Police Extend Detention of Iranians Arrested in Terrorism Probe
The men were arrested under Section 27 of the UK’s 2023 National Security Act, which gives police the power to arrest individuals suspected of acting in association with a foreign power. Four of the men remain in police custody.
The presence of Iranians on British soil believed by the British government to be engaged in criminal activity on behalf of the Islamic Republic could represent a change in strategy by Iran’s clerical regime. The Islamic Republic has been previously accused of choosing to use criminal networks from Eastern Europe to carry out operations against dissidents and targets in the UK.
“The Islamic Republic is investing heavily into everything that would give it the edge abroad,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defence of Democracies told Kayhan Life. “Transnational criminal syndicates and gangs that can kill for hire are the latest add-on to this strategy, but they never fundamentally replaces proxies, radicalized lone-wolves, or other more traditional elements.”
British Minister for Security Dan Jarvis said in a May 6 debate in the UK House of Commons: “The two operations that took place across multiple locations this weekend were significant and complex. They were some of the largest counter-state threats and counter-terrorism actions that we have seen in recent times.”
Sweden’s Security Service Exposes the Iranian Government’s Use of Criminal Networks for Violent Acts
Jarvis added that Sir Ken McCallum, the director general of UK intelligence agency MI5, said threat investigations by the agency had increased by 48 percent in the last twelve months. The agency also responded to 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats since January 2022.
During the debate, Former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urged Europe to trigger snapback sanctions on Iran to place maximum pressure on Iran’s clerical regime.
Security experts warned that the plots could be linked to Iran’s influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been proscribed by the US for alleged acts of terror globally.
“The commendable response of the British police to this terror plot is also a reminder that the United Kingdom has yet to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization,” Taleblu, the Iran program senior director and senior fellow at the conservative Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a May 5 briefing paper. “The British government should do so now in the interests of defending its citizens and its national sovereignty.”
The UK has refused to proscribe the IRGC over concerns that to do so would lead to the closure of a backchannel with Iran. However, lawmakers across a range of parties in the UK have called on the government in recent years to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, following threats on British soil involving Iranian dissidents and journalists critical of Iran’s government.
“The Iranian regime is targeting dissidents, and media organizations and journalists reporting on the regime’s violent oppression,” Jarvis said in a debate on March 4 in the UK Parliament. “It is also no secret that there is a long-standing pattern of the Iranian intelligence services targeting Jewish and Israeli people internationally.”
“The Iranian intelligence services, which include the Islamic Revolutionary
Responding to fresh calls to proscribe the IRGC by lawmakers, Jarvis said that the list of groups to be considered was “under constant review,” and that parts of the UK’s counter-terrorism framework that could be applied to state threats, such as those from Iran, were also being reviewed.
Calls to proscribe the IRGC were also made by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
“The arrest of Islamic Republic agents in the UK, on the brink of another terror attack, reinforces the need to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organization,” Pahlavi said in a May 6 post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter). “This regime has proven, once again, that it will not change its behavior.”
“Proscribing the IRGC and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence is the first step towards aligning homeland defense with national security,” Taleblu said. “The UK can and should do more because fundamentally this is about protecting UK soil and sovereignty from plots launched from the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.”
The UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran raised concerns in a 2024 report that Iranian authorities had “harassed, threatened and intimidated journalists and other media employees” working in the UK, including reporters working at BBC News Persian.
Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, who works for the opposition news agency Iran International, was stabbed in the leg outside his home in Wimbledon in March 2024. Three Romanian men were charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm over the stabbing. While no evidence has been found to show that Iran was involved in the incident, it is believed that the men were acting for the state. Zeraati left England with his family in July and relocated to an undisclosed country.
“There have been communications between the UK police and the police here,” Zeraati told the Guardian newspaper in July. “They know about my situation and have taken extra measures to make sure I’m safe.”
