Operatives within Iran's Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) are recruiting sleeper cells in Britain by using online grooming techniques, a report by the Daily Express said on Saturday.
“An arm of IRGC has used the internet and social media to put in place an informal but complex mosaic of sleeper cells and lone-wolf operatives across the country, ready to act at the behest of the regime,” the newspaper said.
It said men of Middle Eastern and Eastern European origin living in Britain are being recruited as would-be terrorists by the Iranian military operatives who groom them online.
Their role is chiefly to spy, intimidate and harass, but MI5 agents have uncovered at least one major bomb plot which could have been as devastating as the 7/7 London bombings.
The newspaper wrote that Britain’s security services keep a watching brief on the movements of these Iranian “sleeper cells” but they are deliberately designed to provide plausible deniability for the regime in Tehran and be near impossible to fully counter.
But in recent years the security services have foiled multiple plots to commit murder or atrocities on British soil.
Andreas Krieg, Associate Professor of Security Studies at Kings College, in London, told the newspaper that “in Britain it’s not quite sleeper cells, it’s more the co-ordination of useful idiots... a lot of people who like the regime in Iran and want to do their dirty work for them.”
“Iran’s strategy generally is a network strategy, a mosaic. The most powerful weapon Iran has is not ballistic missiles but this network, not just in Britain but across the world. The biggest threat from Iran is not a nuclear missile, it is on Britain’s streets,” he added.
Krieg said: “IRGC is heavily invested in this, it’s part of Iran’s irregular warfare. This way they might not be able to win the war but they will never lose it either.”
He noted that “these people are directly or indirectly connected to the IRGC or the Ministry of Intelligence. There is no direct link to the regime of course, they are not usually sent as agents, they could be Romanian nationals or Afghans... but they are all likely to be with a grudge against the West, America and Israel.”
Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum confirmed that since 2022, MI5 along with police, had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents.
A spokesman for Britain’s Counter Terrorism Police said: “At a time when we are witnessing sabotage attacks directed by Russia and espionage operations by China, Iran continues to source violence in the UK and Europe.
“We are alive to the persistent and enduring threat posed to the UK by the state of Iran,” he added.
