UK faces rising and unpredictable threat from Iran, report warns

Dubai: The UK faces a “rising” and unpredictable threat from Iran and the government must do more to counter it, Parliament’s intelligence and security committee has warned.

The call comes as it publishes the results of a major inquiry which examined Iranian state assassinations and kidnap, espionage, cyber attacks and the country’s nuclear programme, according to BBC.

The report took evidence up to August 2023 so does not assess developments in the aftermath of the 7 October attack, but its authors say the findings remain relevant.

The committee, which is tasked with overseeing Britain’s spy agencies, raised particular concern over the “sharp increase” in physical threats against opponents of Iran’s regime in the UK.

More than a dozen attempts to kill or kidnap British-based individuals were made since 2022, AFP reported.

The UK government’s response has been too focused on “crisis management” while concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme have overly dominated, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament also concluded.

Its report comes amid growing alarm in Britain at alleged Iranian targeting of dissidents, media organisations and journalists in the UK, which has included accusations of physical attacks.

Iran in March became the first country to be placed on an enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which aims to boost Britain’s national security against covert foreign influences.

It requires all persons working inside the country for Iran, its intelligence services or the Revolutionary Guard to register on a new list or face jail.

“Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals, and UK interests,” Kevan Jones, chairman of the watchdog committee, said in the report’s conclusions.

“Iran has a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity and its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength.”

Jones noted it bolsters this through proxy groups, “including criminal networks, militant and terrorist organisations, and private cyber actors” to allow for deniability.

His committee said in its report that while Iran’s UK activity “appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China”, it “should not be underestimated”.

It noted the physical threat posed had “significantly increased” in pace and volume, and was “focused acutely on dissidents and other opponents of the regime” as well as Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK.

“The Iranian Intelligence Services have shown that they are willing and able - often through third-party agents - to attempt assassination within the UK, and kidnap from the UK,” the report said.

“There have been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap against British nationals or UK-based individuals since the beginning of 2022.”

Similarly, security minister Dan Jarvis said in March Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service had tallied 20 Iran-backed plots “presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents”.

The watchdog committee took evidence for two years from August 2021 for its report, a period which saw Tehran implicated in a plot to kill two London-based Iran International television anchors.

In March last year one of the Persian-language outlet’s journalists was stabbed outside his London home.

Two Romanian men have been charged in relation to the attack and face extradition to the UK to stand trial.

The counter terrorism unit of London’s Metropolitan Police led the investigation. Iran’s charge d’affaires in the UK has said that the Tehran authorities “deny any link” to the incident.

As of August 2023, detention was the primary physical threat to British citizens in Iran, while the threat of collateral damage to UK armed forces was the main physical risk to British nationals in the wider Middle East;

A possible evacuation of British citizens in Iran is “not unrealistic” and the government must learn lessons from previous operations, such as the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal;

The government should consider whether it would be “legally possible and practicable” to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation and

It should also consider whether financial sanctions will change behaviour or “unhelpfully push Iran towards China”