The threat of physical attacks by Iran on people living in the UK has increased ‘significantly’ and is now comparable with Russia, a watchdog warned today.
In a new report, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee described the danger from Iran as ‘persistent’ and ‘unpredictable’.
The ‘physical threat’ from Iran had ‘significantly increased’, focused on Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests, it found.
It also warned that the nuclear threat from Iran had increased since President Trump withdrew from a key international agreement in 2018, arguing that de-escalation ‘must be a priority’.
The report from the nine-member committee, which scrutinises the work of Britain’s intelligence agencies, only covers the period up to August 2023 and publication was delayed by last year’s election.
Between the beginning of 2022 and the end of the committee’s evidence-gathering in August 2023, the report found there had been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap against British nationals or UK residents.
The committee urged the Government to make clear to Tehran that such attempts would ‘constitute an attack on the UK and would receive the appropriate response’.
Committee chairman Lord Beamish said: ‘Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals and UK interests’.
Describing Iran’s ‘high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity’, he added: ‘As the committee was told, Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with.’
The shocking scale of this threat was made clear last year by MI5 director general Ken McCallum, who said spies and police had identified 20 credible Iranian plots to kill or kidnap people in the UK since 2022.
They consisted of attempts to assassinate or kidnap dissidents and journalists, with a focus on Iranian nationals rather than the general public.
But Mr McCallum warned that Iran could ‘repurpose’ its criminal network to attack Britons if the conflict in the Middle East escalates.
In May, counterterrorism police arrested five Iranians who had allegedly been plotting to attack the Israeli embassy. They were later released.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Jewish community has been urged to be on heightened alert amid fears of terrorist ‘revenge’ attacks.
In March of last year, Iranian-British journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed four times outside his Wimbledon home.
The attack was allegedly carried out by Eastern European gangsters hired by the Iranians – who were able to flee the country just hours later.
It came shortly after Britain imposed new sanctions on members of an IRGC unit that had tried to assassinate two presenters of Iran International, a UK-based TV channel that is critical of the Tehran regime.
Iran International TV said it had ‘reluctantly’ decided to close its London studios in response to advice from the Met Police.
As well as being linked to alleged terror plots, Iranian forces have also tried to recruit spies in the British military.
They include Daniel Khalife – a ‘hapless’ young soldier who was jailed in February for 14 years and three months for espionage.
The 23-year-old was caught spying for Iran before then fleeing prison by clinging to the bottom of a food truck – before again being caught by the authorities.
He claimed to have been on a one-man ‘double agent’ mission but was labelled an ‘attention seeker’ by a judge when he was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court in London.
Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Khalife – who was ignored when he contacted MI6 and MI5 in his attempts to become a double agent – had been motivated by ‘a selfish desire to show off’ and described him as ‘a dangerous fool’.
While acting as a spy, Khalife ‘exposed military personnel to serious harm’ by collecting sensitive information and passing it to agents of Iran.
He was paid in cash and told handlers he would stay in the military for 25-plus years for them.
In September 2023, Khalife escaped from category B prison HMP Wandsworth in South West London by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck.
He was caught on a canal towpath by a plainclothes detective days later after a major search.
Prosecutors in his trial said Khalife played ‘a cynical game’, claiming he wanted a career as a double agent to help the British intelligence services, when in fact he gathered ‘a very large body of restricted and classified material’.
Khalife was sentenced to six years for committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, and another six years – consisting of five years in prison and one on licence – for eliciting information about members of the armed forces.
The judge also passed a sentence of two years and three months for the jail break.
Last November, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found that Khalife had breached the Official Secrets Act and the Terrorism Act. He was cleared of carrying out a bomb hoax and had already admitted during his trial to escaping from Wandsworth prison.
Last November, sources revealed to the Mail how the German-Iranian leader of a Hells Angels biker gang had allegedly been recruited by Iran to carry out terror attacks.
Ramin Yektaparast, a brutal thug and unashamed anti-Semite with a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on his arm, is suspected of numerous crimes, including planning attacks on synagogues in Germany in November 2022.
The raids reportedly saw shots being fired and a Molotov cocktail thrown at synagogues in the cities of Essen and Bochum.