Iran alongside Russia and China is behind a growing number of life-threatening operations on UK soil including assassination and kidnapping plots carried out by criminal proxies and even teenagers, senior British counter terrorism officers said on Tuesday.
“We are increasingly seeing these three states ... undertaking threat-to-life operations in the United Kingdom,” said Dominic Murphy, who heads London’s Counter Terrorism Command.
Iran, Murphy told reporters, continues “to try and sow violence on the streets of the United Kingdom ... They too are to some extent relying on criminal proxies to do that.”
Vicki Evans, the UK’s Senior National Coordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing, said proxies were typically criminals acting “quite often for small amounts of cash,” but also included vulnerable individuals such as disgruntled teenagers.
“We are concerned that they might find themselves in an online environment where they're encouraged or egged on to do something and don't understand what they're being asked to do,” Evans said.
Last week, the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) released a report warning that Iran poses one of the gravest state-based threats to British national security, on par with adversaries like Russia and China.
The report highlighted Tehran’s increased willingness to carry out assassinations, espionage, and cyberattacks within the United Kingdom, and calls for a fundamental shift in British strategy toward the Islamic Republic.
Since January 2022, there have been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap against British nationals or UK-based individuals, according to the report.
