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The Irish Sun
20-06-2025
- Politics
- The Irish Sun
Iran plots to activate terrorist sleeper cell network across West in desperate last act in face of Israeli destruction
A 'VULNERABLE' IRAN may activate a network of sleeper cells across the West in the face of the Israeli bombing campaign, experts have warned. With its 4 Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Credit: AFP 4 Iran's murderous terrorist wing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) 4 A view of the damage is seen after a missile launched from Iran reportedly struck the area on June 15 in retaliation for recent Israeli attacks Credit: Getty It has now been more than a week since The goal, as the Israelis say, is to thwart the Iranian regime's efforts to produce nuclear weapons - as well as more ballistic missiles, including long-range weapons that can strike targets far beyond Israel. While Iran has been responding by launching frequent salvos of ballistic missiles, its top military command has been decapitated. And Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been forced to live in underground bunkers. read more on iran Experts now fear that a vicious Iran could awaken its network of sleeper cells to carry out terror plots across the West. Barak Seener, a security and defence expert at Henry Jackson Society and Iran expert, said: "The very fact now that the Iranian regime is volatile, it's targeted, and it's highly vulnerable — that's what actually makes it increasingly dangerous to the West." Iran's murderous Mr Seener said that these sleeper cells could be regular people living regular lives. Most read in The US Sun But when given the signal, they could carry out terrorist activities targeting the West. These terror operations could target public infrastructure and even civilians, with no weapons off the table, experts warn. Trump is top Iran assassination target - their terror network spreads across Europe & US, warns ex-White House official The sleeper cells could even carry out assassination attempts on top leaders that could throw the world into chaos. Last year, an Iranian agent was charged with plotting to kill Donald Trump in an assassination that would have shaken the world. Prosecutors said an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard told Shakeri to devise a plan to eliminate the President elect. They claim the planned hit was an attempt to take vengeance for a Trump's former security advisor, John Bolton, said the from the Middle East nation. Mr Seener said: "They live amongst us in regular communities, have regular jobs, and they just are awaiting being activated to conduct malign activities, whether it be through a telephone text or a beeper, and then they already know what they are going to be doing. "If the regime feels threatened and on the verge of being toppled, then they may say, 'you're going to go down with us,' and at that point they may unleash their sleeper cells." In an "It cannot defeat Israel, but it could go mad and unleash terrorism, even using chemical weapons, which its industries can make much more easily than nuclear weapons." 4 Mr Seener said the attacks could range from an attack against a synagogue, an embassy, or blowing up a dirty bomb in Central London. Sir Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, warned back in October that Iran could turn on UK targets if it felt Britain was too enthusiastic in its support for Israel. He said the attacks could increase if the Middle East conflict intensifies. In August, Matt Jukes, the head of He said Iranian dissidents and diaspora communities have been 'clearly at risk of kidnapping or assassination'. "These are people who are doing it daily. And when you are projecting soft power, you're creating the cultural milieu in which terrorism can be conducted much more readily. Counterterror police have investigated 15 of these cases alongside MI5 has responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022, it was reported. Mr Seener said: "The reason why the Irgc can act with impunity, and why British citizens are at risk, is because of the British Government's unwillingness and failure to designate the Irgc as a terrorist organisation. "It means that they are able to conduct activities and infiltrate mosques, charities, community centres, cultural centres, and many of them, their directorship has been directly appointed by the supreme leader, Khamenei." "British Shias go on pilgrimages to religious sites in Iran and Iraq. They are targeted by the IRGC and recruited, so that when they return to the UK, they can conduct surveillance on potential targets." Iran's terror on UK street By Sayan Bose, Foreign News Reporter Iran-fuelled hit squads on the streets of the UK have been linked to at least 15 threats to kill or kidnap detected by authorities. They are all part of a campaign of intimidation aimed at those who speak out against the hardline regime. The MI5 has accused Tehran of more than a dozen assassination and kidnap plots in Britain against dissidents and media organisations in the past two years. Officials have previously warned that the threat against Iranian critics living in the UK has ramped up drastically after the horror October 7 attacks. And given the hostile situation in the Middle East, Iran could ramp up its secret terror activities in the UK, Europe and the US, experts fear. In 2022, Major Gen Hossein Salami, the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC warned: "You've tried us before. Watch out because we're coming for you." Last year, Iranian TV journalist Pouria Zeraati was The suspects were believed to be proxy agents hired by Tehran. Mr Zeraati works for He said a man approached him and asked for £3 before another man appeared and stabbed him in the leg. The two fled in a car being driven by a third man, leaving Mr Zeraati bleeding in the street. Investigators believed the three culprits were able to flee the country on a flight from Mr Zeraati, whose organisation has been a vocal critic of Iran, said the attack was a "warning shot" from Tehran. He called on the UK government to declare the IRGC a terrorist group to stop it from spreading its doctrine. He said: "It will also send a clear message to the regime in Iran that enough is enough. "The whole of Western civilisation is in danger because of the threat the IRGC poses." A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found almost half of journalists who covered Iran from the UK reported being physically or verbally harassed in the past five years. Individuals have been sent death threats by text and voice notes, with one message noting that the 'water underneath Westminster Bridge was very deep'. One said they were constantly worried about Iran targeting their children, saying: 'I wake up in the middle of the night. I check my son to see if he's there. I won't let him play in the garden on his own. I have to be there. I'm on alert constantly.' Another reporter told the RSF she had a package, which was designed to look like it contained anthrax, hand-delivered to her apartment block. While female TV journalist was approached on a London bus by a man who told her: 'We will kill you. You are a very bad person.' All of them are understood to have voiced their dissent against Tehran. The IRGC is the principal supporter of Amid Current sanctions on Kasra Aarabi, Director of IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran, said: 'The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the most antisemitic armed Islamist extremist organisation in the world. 'The government needs to proscribe the IRGC as a matter of urgency. 'The failure to proscribe the IRGC is putting British lives at risk, not least those from the British-Jewish community and British-Iranian diaspora —the two primary targets of IRGC terrorism in the UK.'
Sky News AU
19-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
‘Highly vulnerable' Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may try to activate ‘sleeper cells' in the West as Israeli onslaught mounts: expert
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may be attempting to activate terrorist 'sleeper cells' across the West as he repeatedly makes inflammatory statements rejecting President Trump's calls for surrender, Middle East experts say. As Iran is increasingly squeezed by Israel — losing far more than the Jewish state has in the nearly week-old war — Henry Jackson Society research fellow Barak Seener warned Wednesday that Khamenei may be seeking to awaken terrorist Iranian sympathizers across the world as he runs out of traditional resources. 'The very fact now that the Iranian regime is volatile, it's targeted, and it's highly vulnerable — that's what actually makes it increasingly dangerous to the West, in that it has nothing to lose it has this about this sense of nihilism, and it affects the rational calculus,' Seener said during a call with reporters hosted the America-Middle East Press Association. Khamenei on Wednesday rejected Trump's demands that Tehran give up its nuclear program, calling the president's demands 'absurd rhetoric' while refusing to back down. 'The US entering in this matter is 100% to its own detriment,' he said. 'The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter.' However, Iran is rapidly running low on ballistic missiles and missile launchers, making it exceedingly difficult for Tehran to follow through on any conventional threat to the United States, Israeli military experts say. What's more, Israel has effectively defeated Tehran's proxy groups — such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, leaving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps relatively alone in its fight, Seener said. 'The very fact that Hamas and Hezbollah are sitting this one out is also a humiliation to Iran,' he said. 'They don't have their proxies to insulate them, which they have previously had.' 'These proxies have been significantly degraded, opening the skies directly for Israel to get to Tehran. And as a result of that, where can the IRGC flex? The only place where it can really flex now is the international community to potentially activate sleeper cells and to conduct malign activities at an even greater capacity than it had beforehand.' However, it's unclear how much capability Tehran would retain if Israel manages to end the IRGC's core components and officials. The Israel Defense Force killed IRGC commander Hossein Salami on Friday, though he was later replaced by former Iranian Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi. 'To what end does it have its ability to activate its sleeper cells or IRGC networks internationally, if the IRGC is command and control has been decapitated? Who gives the orders? Is somebody willing to put themselves on the line to conduct a terrorist activity, if they may not even get paid for it, right?' Seener said. 'I mean, these are all questions.' 'Though perhaps contingency measures have been created where malign activities can go on unaffected,' he added. The feds have foiled several attempts by the Iranian government to conduct assassinations and terror attacks on US soil in recent years. In 2011, Iran's Quds Force recruited, funded and directed an Iranian American man to coordinate a murder-for-hire plot targeting Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US. Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized US citizen, received a 25-year sentence after he contracted men he believed were Mexican drug cartel associates to assassinate the ambassador — by bombing the Saudi embassy in DC and restaurants frequented by the diplomat. Former Bronx resident and Hezbollah 'sleeper' agent Ali Kourani was sentenced to 40 years in 2019 for providing material support to the terror group between 2002 and 2015. Kourani surveilled airports, federal buildings and military facilities on behalf of Hezbollah as part of an attack-planning mission, according to federal prosecutors. In 2022, IRGC member Shahram Poursafi was charged for allegedly attempting to arrange the assassination of former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Poursafi — who remains at large — attempted to hire a hitman for $300,000 to take out Bolton, likely in retaliation for the US killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in a January 2020 airstrike at Baghdad's international airport, according to authorities. Hezbollah would be the most likely Iranian proxy group to engage in terror attacks out of desperation, Brian Carter, an expert at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats project, told The Post. 'Iran or Hezbollah could turn to terrorism as a tactic in the coming months because both actors have been so badly weakened and have fewer options,' he said. 'Iran has historically used Hezbollah as a tool for its terror acts, and it is possible Iran could do so again.' Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that the track record of Iran's overseas operatives demonstrates a lack of competence in their ability to actually carry out attacks. 'The clerical regime has sometimes been persistent; it has never shown much competence or ingenuity,' Gerecht told The Post. 'They might get lucky, of course. But the current generation IRGC intel and intelligence ministry operatives may be the least impressive overseas since the revolution.' Originally published as 'Highly vulnerable' Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may try to activate 'sleeper cells' in the West as Israeli onslaught mounts: expert
