Iranian threat to Jews in UK now rivals Russia, says intelligence watchdog
Parliamentary committee warns of ‘significantly increased’ risk to Jewish and Israeli interests from Tehran-backed plots
The threat of Iranian-backed attacks on Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK has “increased significantly” and is now on par with the danger posed by Russia, according to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC).
In a report released Thursday, the cross-party watchdog warned that the “physical threat” from Iran was persistent, wide-ranging and “unpredictable”, with Iranian dissidents and the UK’s Jewish community among those most at risk.
Between January 2022 and August 2023, the ISC found there had been at least 15 Iranian-linked attempts to kidnap or kill UK nationals or residents – including plots believed to target individuals with Israeli or Jewish affiliations.
The committee described Iran’s offensive activity as increasingly reckless, noting its “high appetite for risk” and willingness to carry out operations on British soil.
Committee chair Lord Beamish said: “Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals and UK interests. 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 report also urged the Government to consider proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, a move long called for by MPs and Jewish communal bodies.
Iran’s espionage and interference operations in the UK were found to be “less sophisticated” than those of Russia or China, but still capable of causing harm. The report also warned that Tehran-backed cultural centres – such as the Islamic Centre of England – may be promoting extremist ideologies.
Although the report only covers up to August 2023, the committee said its findings remain relevant despite the war that erupted in October following Hamas’s attacks on Israel. Since then, Iran’s proxies – including Hamas and Hezbollah – have come under heavy military pressure, and Tehran itself has faced Israeli and US airstrikes targeting nuclear facilities.
Even so, the committee warned that Iran’s nuclear threat is growing, with the regime making clear progress since the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. It found that Tehran had not yet built a nuclear weapon, but had taken steps that could allow it to do so in a relatively short time.
The ISC was sharply critical of the UK’s Iran strategy, saying it lacked long-term planning and had been driven by short-term crisis management. It also warned of a “lack of Iran-specific expertise” within government, with one witness stating: “If you have people running policy in the Foreign Office who don’t speak a word of Persian, then that is a fat lot of good.”
The Government has since placed Iran in the “enhanced tier” of its new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, and sanctioned over 500 individuals and more than 1,100 entities related to the regime.
In response to the report, a Government spokesperson said: “This independent report demonstrates the vital work our security and intelligence agencies do countering threats posed by states such as Iran. We thank the committee for its diligent work and will respond fully in due course.”
Tehran dismissed the findings as “unfounded” and “politically motivated”, with its UK embassy claiming the report’s allegations of violence, espionage and cyber aggression were “defamatory” and “dangerous”.
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