British criminals work with ‘terrorist arm of Iranian state’ | Politics | News
Iran is accused of using criminal gangs to spy on British targets and attempting to recruit UK citizens who go on pilgrimages. A new report from the Henry Jackson Society will intensify pressure on the Government to follow the example of allies and formally proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
The think tank claims Iran has used drug traffickers and other criminals to conduct surveillance on dissidents as well as British and Israeli officials. It claims Iran has attempted to recruit Britons who go on pilgrimages to religious sites in Iran and Iraq as spies.
The UK, the report warns, has failed to recognise the “domestic threat” posed by the IRGC. The guard corps was founded in 1979 in the wake of the Iranian revolution. The think tank says it now has 190,000 troops and “dominates the Iranian economy”.
President Trump designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organisation in 2019, claiming it “participates in, finances, and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft”.
Former Brexit minister David Jones pushed for the Government to do likewise.
He said: “British Parliamentarians have been calling for the proscription of the IRGC for a very long time. The organisation is in reality the terrorist arm of the Iranian state. It exports its terror throughout the Middle East and the wider world, both directly and through proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen. It is deeply dangerous.”
Mr Jones added that the UK should “give its unqualified support to Iranian civil resistance groups”.
Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has also called on the Government to proscribe the IRGC. Jon Pearce, the Labour MP who chairs LFI, has said “Tehran’s terror army” is “a clear and present danger here at home”.
Barak Sener, the author of the report, pressed for action, saying: “The IRGC taps into local criminal gangs to conduct surveillance and intimidate and target opponents of the Iranian regime. The IRGC seeks to recruit British Muslims who go on religious pilgrimages…
“Proscription makes it illegal to offer any type of support – verbal or material to the organisation that has been banned.”
A Government spokesperson said: “The UK Government, law enforcement and our international partners continue to work together to identify, deter and respond to threats from Iran. We continue to take strong action and hold the Iranian regime to account, sanctioning more than 450 Iranian individuals and entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as placing Iran on the enhanced tier of the new foreign influence registration scheme.”
