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Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Iran poses ‘persistent and sophisticated' threat to UK, warns British watchdog
UK Parliament's intelligence watchdog, Intelligence and Security Committee on Thursday said that the threat of physical attacks by Iran on the UK now matches to that of Russia. Iran has 'a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity' on foreign soil, the report said.(REUTERS File) 'Whilst Iran's activity appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China, Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and sophisticated threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated,' the UK watchdog said in a report. According the the report by the watchdog, the number of intelligence officers in the IIS – in the tens of thousands – is also significantly smaller than the Russian and Chinese equivalents, which are in the low hundreds of thousands. Nevertheless, Iran still poses a significant and broad threat to the UK. The report added that Iran's main strategic objectives towards the UK include reducing the UK's military presence in the region, undermining the UK's relationships with the US and Israel, weakening the UK's security relationships in the Middle East, and silencing criticism of Iran, either from the UK directly or from those residing in the UK. Citing instances of 15 attempted murders or kidnappings of British nationals or UK residents by Iran, the committee said the physical threat posed by the country is 'comparable with the threat posed by Russia'. The threat posed by Iran is also linked to the state of the bilateral relationship between Iran and the UK. This relationship could change depending on the UK's international engagement as much as UK-specific actions or policy. The Intelligence Community also noted that Iran's approach towards the UK is closely linked to its approach to the US – unsurprising given the close alignment between the UK and the US. What does the report say about the Iran-UK relationship that existed in history? Iran and the UK have a complex history. Iran's leadership perceives the UK to be a significant adversary – a 'cunning fox' – opposed to the Iranian regime's values and, as part of the West, to be seeking regime change in Iran. It therefore believes that the UK poses a military and intelligence threat in the Middle East – although witnesses suggested that the UK would sit behind the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia in any priority list. 'Slightly chaotic' nature of threat Intelligence and Security Committee chairman Kevan Jones, reportedly warned that Iran has 'a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity' on foreign soil. According to a report by The Independent, 'Its intelligence services are ferociously well resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength,' Jones said. According to yesterday's report, Iran's activity certainly appears less strategic than that of China and Russia. 'I would describe the nature of the threat as slightly chaotic. It is not as strategic as we have seen from the Chinese and the Russians. There seem to be waves of activities … rather than a kind of consistent plan,' the Home Secretary told the Intelligence and Security Committee. 'Iran does not have the scale or some of the strategic aims that in particular that the China does. China and Russia are substantially more strategic, in terms of the breadth of what they are interested in doing inside the United Kingdom,' the report added. Which Iranian-aligned militant and terrorist groups pose the biggest threat to the UK? The reported named multiple militant and terrorist groups in the Middle East which have a relationship with, and receive support from, Iran, like Kata'ib Hizbollah in Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Both the organizations have demonstrated both the capability and intent to threaten UK interests. Other notable groups, such as Lebanese Hizbollah, do not appear to have the intent – given their regional focus and publicly stated objectives – but retain the capability to target UK interests, said the report. Scope of the report The committee concluded its evidence-taking in August 2023, the result of two years of work, but the report authors say their conclusions 'remain relevant', reported Sky News. The report authors questioned whether UK sanctions against individuals would 'in practice deliver behavioural change. Or in fact unhelpfully push Iran towards China,' the report added.
Spectator
3 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
Is Britain an ally or an enemy of Israel?
Even as the British parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) published its stark warning yesterday that the Islamic Republic of Iran's Quds Force orchestrates spy rings on British soil, the UK continues its public ostracisation of Israel, the very country on the frontline of seeing down that exact threat. Britain must choose. Not between Israelis and Palestinians, but between honesty and hypocrisy Earlier this week, an Afghan-Danish spy working for Iran was arrested for photographing Jewish and Israeli targets in Berlin. The intelligence trail ran through Israel, Denmark, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. Israel's cooperation helped foil an operation with chilling echoes of the Iranian regime's 1980s and 90s terror campaigns in Europe, such as the assassination of Shapour Bakhtiar in France, the murder of Salman Rushdie's Japanese translator, and Hezbollah-linked attacks tied to Iranian agents. And yet we in Britain are punishing our ally, Israel, with symbolic slights, even as it helps protect European citizens. Britain must choose. Not between Israelis and Palestinians, nor between compassion and realism, but between honesty and hypocrisy. For too long, successive UK governments have sought to conceal the depth and strength of their alliance with Israel behind a veil of diplomatic ambiguity and theatrical moralising. In doing so, they not only insult a vital ally but also betray the British public by failing to explain, with clarity and confidence, why our alliance with Israel is essential – economically, militarily, and morally. In May, Foreign Secretary David Lammy declared with great theatrical indignation that he was suspending UK-Israel trade negotiations, condemning Israeli ministers in apocalyptic tones, while still quietly affirming continued security and intelligence cooperation. As he stood up in the Commons, all bluster and rage, I thought back to a moment less than two years before; I had been in Israel, travelling with then Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch as she diligently worked towards that exact free trade agreement, paving the way to greater collaboration between the UK and Israel. As we toured the Teva pharmaceuticals factory, she told me how it represents just one example of the mutual benefits to both countries of our close ties: the Israeli company's generic medicines save the NHS around £2.7 billion every year, and it employs 1,200 people in the UK across four sites. But in 2025, Lammy declared the trade talks frozen. Yet only today the British Embassy in Israel quietly released a glowing statement (aimed at the Israeli press), touting Britain's new Industrial Strategy and hailing Israel as a premier partner in eight high-growth sectors, from AI and clean energy to life sciences and digital innovation. One in eight medicines used in the UK originates from Israeli firms, it boasts. Over the last five years, more than 300 Israeli companies have expanded into the UK creating around 4,000 jobs and over £906 million in investment. Israeli investment in the UK last year alone created nearly 900 jobs and injected £173 million into our economy. Britain exports aircraft engines and automobiles to Israel. Israel delivers biotechnology, software, and cyber expertise to Britain. The relationship is not just strategic, it is indispensable. But while Britain embraces it in practice, it condemns it in public. Israel is treated by British politicians not as a respected friend, but as a secret mistress, visited in the dark, denied in the daylight. This duplicity is neither moral nor mature. It is cowardice, dressed up as conscience. Worse still, it empowers precisely the voices that seek to undermine both countries. By indulging and appeasing the anti-Israel theatrics of certain backbenchers and media ideologues –those who confuse Hamas propaganda with human rights advocacy – the UK government lends legitimacy to a worldview in which the Jewish state is uniquely villainised. Nowhere is this split-personality approach more absurd than in the UK's recent decision to sanction Israel's Finance and National Security Ministers, at the very moment it is deepening trade ties and drawing on Israeli expertise in security. The Finance Minister is targeted while UK-Israel economic cooperation thrives. The National Security Minister is blacklisted even as, in the words of Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and ex-head of international terrorism at the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee, the UK continues to rely on Israel's unmatched security know-how. Earlier this month as we sat together in a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv, Kemp told me just how much Britain still learns from Israel. The ISC's report on Iran is categorical: Iran is executing or sponsoring kidnapping plots, assassination attempts, cyber-attacks, and propaganda operations within the UK. MI5 and counter-terror agencies have thwarted at least 15 credible plots since 2022. British-Iranian journalists have been targeted. Families of BBC Persian staff harassed in Tehran. British Jews are in danger. All this, while Britain dithers on whether to proscribe the IRGC, the military arm of a regime that openly boasts of its ambition to destroy both Israel and the West. Meanwhile, Israel confronts these threats head-on. Not with bluster, but with courage, skill and competence. It has created a society that is both free and secure, pluralistic and resilient. It is a state where secularism coexists with vibrant religious life, where Arab citizens serve in the judiciary and military, and where corruption is prosecuted even at the highest levels – unlike in Britain where free spectacles, clothes, wallpaper, concert tickets, dresses and much more are no more than tabloid fodder. A nation of just ten million has produced more start-ups and lifesaving medical innovations per capita than nearly any other country on Earth, ranking among the top globally for Nobel laureates per capita. It has absorbed refugees from every continent, forged a national identity from extraordinary diversity, and shown that multiculturalism need not mean fragmentation. Contrast this with Britain's own drift. Struggling with incoherent policing, demoralised armed forces, a fraying social contract, and a political class paralysed by its own post-colonial neuroses, the UK seems ever more inclined to lecture its allies instead of learning from them. We issue pious calls for ceasefires with no strategy, no plan, no understanding of the enemy. We demand de-escalation while offering no alternative to surrender. We condemn Israel for confronting jihadism while failing to contain it ourselves. Enough. Britain cannot afford to berate the very partner that helps it survive in a perilous age. Nor can it outsource its moral compass to the loudest street protestor, the scariest religious fanatic, or most sanctimonious backbencher. It should stand up, speak clearly, and state the truth: Israel is our friend, a model, and an essential ally. The time for double-dealing is over. We must stop whispering our friendship and start declaring it with pride.
STV News
4 days ago
- Politics
- STV News
‘Physical threat' from Iran has ‘increased significantly', watchdog finds
The threat of physical attacks on people living in the UK by Iran has increased 'significantly' since 2022, Parliament's intelligence watchdog has warned. In a report published on Thursday, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee described the threat from Iran as 'persistent' and 'unpredictable'. The committee found the 'physical threat' from Iran had 'significantly increased', focused on Iranian dissidents and Israeli interests, and was now 'comparable with the threat posed by Russia'. It also warned that the nuclear threat from Iran had also increased, since the US withdrew from the international nuclear agreement in 2018, and argued that de-escalation 'must be a priority'. The Irainian embassy in Knightsbridge, London. / Credit: PA The report from the nine-member committee, which scrutinises the work of Britain's intelligence agencies, only covers the period up to August 2023 with publication delayed due to 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 has urged the government to make clear to Iran that 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.' His committee also recommended that the Government consider whether it was 'legally possible and practicable' to proscribe Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation and make a full statement to Parliament on the issue. Ministers have faced calls in recent years to ban the IRGC, but the committee recognised there were 'complexities inherent' in such a decision. Iranian journalist Sima Sabet told ITV News how she fears for her safety, after an Iranian assassination plot targeting her was uncovered Since August 2023, the international picture has changed with the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war and the US strikes on Iran's nuclear targets. Despite these changes, the committee insisted its recommendations remained 'relevant'. The committee warned that, while Iran had neither developed a nuclear weapon nor decided to produce one by August 2023, it had taken steps towards development in recent years since Donald Trump withdrew from the 2018 deal. It also warned that the UK remained a target for Iranian espionage, which it found was 'narrower in scope and scale' and 'less sophisticated' than the threat from Russia and China. While Iran's political interference has had a 'negligible effect', the committee warned that Iran-backed cultural and educational centres such as the Islamic Centre of England could be being used to 'promote violent and extremist ideology'. The committee said it was also 'essential' to 'raise the resilience bar' on cybersecurity across the UK in the face of Iran's willingness to carry out digital attacks. Regarding the Government's response to the Iranian threat, the committee warned that policy had 'suffered from a focus on crisis management' over Iran's nuclear programme and lacked 'longer-term thinking'. It also criticised a 'lack of Iran-specific expertise', saying there was 'seemingly no interest in building a future pipeline of specialists'. One witness told the committee: '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 UK had sanctioned 508 individuals and 1,189 individuals relating to Iran by August 2023, but the committee urged the government to reconsider whether sanctions 'will in practice deliver behavioural change or in fact unhelpfully push Iran towards China'. However, it welcomed the decision to place Iran in the 'enhanced tier' of the new Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, placing extra burdens on people acting on Tehran's behalf in the UK. Iranian journalist Sima Sabet, alongside fellow news anchor Fardad Farahzad, became the target of an assassination plot by Iranian spies, revelations which were uncovered by ITV News in December 2023. She said, 'The most important thing that comes to my mind is, what is going to be the UK's government response to that report, what actions are they going to take?' Sima told ITV News that she learnt nothing new from the committee's report A statement from the Iranian embassy in the UK said: 'The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran firmly denies all allegations made in these sections and considers them to be baseless, irresponsible, and reflective of a broader pattern of distortion intended to malign Iran's legitimate regional and national interests. 'These claims not only lack substantive evidence but also contradict the Islamic Republic of Iran's principled commitment to international law, sovereign equality, and peaceful coexistence… 'The suggestion that Iran engages in or supports acts of physical violence, espionage, or cyber aggression on British soil or against British interests abroad, is wholly rejected. 'Such accusations are not only defamatory but also dangerous, fuelling unnecessary tensions and undermining diplomatic norms.' 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Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
NATO Ally Warns of Iranian Assassination Threat
A sweeping new report from the UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) warns that Iran has dramatically increased its efforts to intimidate, kidnap, or kill individuals on British soil. The committee found that at least 15 such plots have been uncovered since the start of 2022, targeting dissidents, Israeli interests, and others opposed to the Iranian regime. The ISC said the British government focused too narrowly on Iran's nuclear program while neglecting other aggressive state behaviors, including cyberattacks, espionage, and assassination attempts—patterns that closely mirror similar threats seen in the United States. Newsweek has reached out to the State Department and Iran's foreign ministry for comment. The report's findings reinforce growing transatlantic concerns that Iran is expanding an alleged campaign of repression far beyond its borders. The UK, a NATO ally and key partner of Washington, now believes it is on the front line of a global campaign. It also points to further alignment on Iran between Washington and London. According to the ISC, Iran's campaign against regime opponents in Britain has "significantly increased in pace and in number" since early 2022. These plots primarily target Iranian dissidents but also extend to Israeli-linked individuals. The UK's Homeland Security Group said the level of physical threat from Iran is now the highest the country faces from Tehran—on par with threats posed by Russia. The report describes Iran's intelligence services as "ferociously well-resourced" and capable of operating across a wide range of threats. Tehran, the committee warns, has a "high appetite for risk" and is willing to engage in assassination and intimidation tactics against targets in the UK. On Wednesday, an Iranian official Javad Larijani joked on state television that a "micro-drone" could strike President Donald Trump while sunbathing at Mar-a-Lago—a comment Trump casually dismissed, saying he's "not too big into sunbathing" and questioning the seriousness of the threat. U.S. intelligence agencies have long warned of Iran's efforts to target Trump, linking these threats to Tehran's retaliation for the 2020 drone strike that killed General Qassem Soleimani. However, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a Monday interview with Tucker Carlson, firmly denied any Iranian government involvement in plots against President Trump, branding those claims as "Israeli propaganda" designed to drag the U.S. into conflict. Instead, he accused Israel of attempting to assassinate him during recent airstrikes but reiterated Tehran's openness to dialogue with Washington—provided mutual trust can be rebuilt ISC report: "Whilst Iran's activity appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China, Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated: it is persistent and – crucially – unpredictable." Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the subject of alleged assassination plots: "None whatsoever. We have never attempted this to begin with and we never will." The British government is required to respond within 60 days. The report, already reviewed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and UK intelligence agencies, may also prompt closer cooperation with the U.S. and NATO on countering Iran's expanding footprint across the West. Related Articles Is the Middle East Really on the Verge of a New Dawn? | OpinionIran's Defense Chief Delivers Harsh WarningIran Fatwa Fundraiser to Kill Donald Trump Raises Over $40 MillionDonald Trump Responds to Iran Mar-a-Lago Assassination 'Threat' 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Euronews
4 days ago
- Politics
- Euronews
UK faces 'unpredictable threat' from Iran, intelligence report warns
A UK intelligence committee said on Thursday that Iran has significantly increased its physical threat to people on British soil since 2022. UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee said on Thursday that the danger posed to Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests was on par with the threat from Russia. Between January 2022 and August 2023 there were at least 15 murder or kidnap attempts against British citizens or residents, the report said. "Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK," Kevan Jones, a member of the House of Lords and chair of the committee, said. Iran's embassy in London denied the findings of the report, describing them as "unfounded, politically motivated and hostile allegations." "The suggestion that Iran engages in or supports acts of physical violence, espionage, or cyber aggression on British soil or against British interests abroad, is wholly rejected," the embassy said in a statement. "Such accusations are not only defamatory but also dangerous, fuelling unnecessary tensions and undermining diplomatic norms." The committee report said Iran was not as strategic as Russia or China and slightly chaotic with a "high appetite for risk" and "waves of activities," rather than having a consistent plan. Last year, the head of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5, warned of a staggering rise in attempts at assassination, sabotage and other crimes on UK soil by both Iran and Russia. The 206-page report was published on Thursday as part of an inquiry into national security issues relating to Iran. It was sent to Prime Minister Keir Starmer in March and then circulated among UK intelligence organisations to give them the opportunity to request any redactions on national security grounds.
