A minister of the British government said attacks by Iranian intelligence on the UK are already regularly ongoing and the threat may well increase as conflict progresses in the Middle East.
Business Secretary of the UK’s left-wing Labour Party-led government Jonathan Reynolds said espionage by the Iranian regime against Britain is already ongoing “at a significant level” and that he is “very” concerned about the risk of “Iranian-backed terrorism”.
Speaking to broadcaster Sky News after the United States launched precision strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities to deny the country a path to creating a nuclear weapon, Reynolds noted the pace of Iranian cyber attacks was intense, striking weekly, and that “There is Iranian activity on the streets of the UK, which is wholly unacceptable”.
In that sense, Iranian terrorism and espionage is “not something to worry about in the future, this is at the here and now”, he said, calling these attacks and actions “wholly unacceptable”, very concerning”, and not hypothetical.
It would be “naïve” to not think the threat of intensified Iranian acts against Britain would increase as conflict ramped up, the minister said, offering Iran a “choice” to consider stepping back from antagonising the West. He said: “Do they want to continue being an agent of instability in the region and the wider world? Where has that got them? Where has it got the Iranian people? There is a better course of action for Iran to take here, and I think they should consider that.”
Recent Iranian plots on British soil include a foiled bid to attack the Israeli embassy, “spear phishing” cyber attacks, and a British Army soldier prosecuted for spying for Iran. The head of MI5 has called the pace of Iranian attempts to disrupt the UK “plot after plot… at an unprecedented pace and scale” in an October speech which said “events in the Middle East” would broaden “Iranian state aggression in the UK”.
The spy boss said:
Like the Russian services, Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies – from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks. Last December a man was jailed for reconnaissance he had carried out against the then-headquarters of the Iran International media organisation.
Detecting criminals prepared to have their strings pulled by states has at least some similarities to spotting would-be terrorists dancing to the tune of online radicalisers. It is a familiar challenge. We’ll keep finding them.
So to those tempted to carry out such tasks, I say this: If you take money from Iran, Russia or any other state to carry out illegal acts in the UK, you will bring the full weight of the national security apparatus down on you. It’s a choice you’ll regret.
It is not only the United Kingdom grappling with these concerns. The United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said on Monday the United States was weighing the risk of ‘sleeper cells’, saying: “we’ve seen some from overseas, and some that have been here, maybe been overseas for a short period of time, become radicalised, and come back. Or individuals whop are right here in the United States. We have to watch for all of it and be diligent on all of it.
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