The sinister reach of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard: Calls for UK to ban Iranian military wing as a terror group – as fears rise over Tehran-backed cells after latest arrests

Whitehall is today facing mounting pressure to take action against Iran’s sinister Islamic Revolutionary Guard amid fears it backed a foiled terror attack against Britain. 

Since 2022, UK counter-terrorism police have identified more than 20 credible Iranian threats to kill or kidnap people in the UK.

Over the weekend, counter-terror cops and MI5 are believed to have been joined by members of the British special forces to carry out a string of busts targeting alleged members of a suspected terror cell. 

Armed officers swooped across parts of Manchester, London and Swindon as part of a co-ordinated series of high-octane raids. 

It’s not clear who was behind the alleged terror plot foiled over the weekend, which insiders say was just hours away from being launched.

However, experts suggest it bears the hallmark of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s international brigade of terror – specifically, the branch tasked with its foreign operations, the Quds Force.

The IRGC is a violent, Islamist-extremist organisation that was founded by acolytes of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran’s core values.

It uses a mix of terror, extreme violence and ideological warfare to safeguard the Islamic Republic’s revolution and target its enemies. It’s been linked to kidnaps, assassinations and terror attacks.

Members of the SAS are suspected to have supported counter-terrorism police during an operation to bust an alleged terror cell on Rochdale over the weekend. It’s feared the suspected terror group was being supported by officials in Iran 

Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) force attend a rally marking the annual Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day in Tehran

The IRGC is feared to have been linked to scores of attempted terror attacks in the UK. PIctured are members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) marching during the annual ‘Sacred Defence Week’ military parade 

Back in his November 2022 annual threat update, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum assessed there was a severe threat from Iran’s ‘aggressive intelligence services’ to kidnap or kill UK-based people. He was talking about the IRGC.

Just a few months later, on January 12 2023, the House of Commons unanimously passed a motion calling on the UK government to finally proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Yet that Commons motion was not binding and so the IRGC remains unproscribed, not only in the UK but, staggeringly, across Europe.

Ali Ansari, professor in modern history at the University of St Andrews, told the Mail: ‘Saturday’s arrests are a very worrying development and a clear sign that Iran’s threat to UK citizens is more than rhetorical.’ 

In March of last year, Iranian-British journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed four times outside his Wimbledon home. 

The attack was allegedly carried out by Eastern European gangsters hired by the Iranians – who were able to flee the country just hours later.

Only a few months earlier, Britain imposed new sanctions on members of an IRGC unit that had tried to assassinate two presenters of Iran International, a UK-based TV channel that is critical of the Tehran regime.

Even after those sinister incidents, the then Tory government refused to act. Foreign secretary David Cameron opined that banning the IRGC was not in the UK interests.

The Islamic Republic is ideologically geared to oppose the West and to export its Shia Revolution – and what makes the IRGC such a threat is that it wages both military and political warfare.

Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati (pictured) was rushed to hospital after being attacked by thugs, believed to have been hired by Tehran 

The prominent journalist, who works for the Iran International TV channel, has been openly critical of the Iranian government’s regime

Last November, sources revealed to the Mail how the German-Iranian leader of a Hells Angels biker gang had allegedly been recruited by Iran to carry out terror attacks.

Ramin Yektaparast, a brutal thug and unashamed anti-Semite with a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on his arm, is suspected of numerous crimes, including planning attacks on synagogues in Germany in November 2022. 

The raids reportedly saw shots being fired and a Molotov cocktail thrown at synagogues in the cities of Essen and Bochum.

Western intelligence sources have reportedly grilled Yektaparast in Iran over his alleged links to the Iranian regime. 

Sources revealed to the Mail last year that during his covert interrogation with intelligence officers, he described the history of his ties with Quds Force – the foreign operations branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. 

He provided details of his handlers and of the targets. The accurate information he relayed facilitated the disruption of several terror attacks in Europe.’ 

Yektaparast was the brain and brawn behind two terror attacks mounted by the Quds Force in Germany in 2022, as well as dozens of other foiled attacks in Europe.

He fled to Iran before he was due to stand trial in 2021 for the murder and dismemberment of another biker gang member in 2014. 

He was later assassinated by Israel’s elite Mossad special operations group last year. 

However, before his death, the Quds Force had approached him due to ‘his reputation as a cruel gang leader with an extensive network of ties in Europe’.

Ramin Yektaparast is a German-Iranian central to Iran’s international terror operation

Ramin in Iran. He was the brain and brawn behind two terror attacks mounted by the Quds Force in Germany in 2022, as well as dozens of other foiled attacks in Europe

The Iranians liked this thug’s willingness to ‘mount any type of terror attack that Quds Force asked of him’. He was passed onto Quds Force Unit 840, described to me as the regime’s ‘terror export’ unit.

Yektaparast knew criminals in about 50 countries, many of them Mafia members. In 2023, he had begun working with gangs in Morocco and Poland as well as bringing members of these gangs to Iran. Most Mafia members have no ideology beyond making money, Yektaparast explained to his questioners in Iran. But the German and Polish mafia are different: they’re raised to hate Jews.

He knew the Quds Force had flagged him as a good candidate for recruitment due to his openly anti-Semitic beliefs. His handlers were keen to exploit those ugly convictions and ‘presented their anti-Semitic stances to him, noting that the Jews are the cause of all his troubles’.

From there, it was a rapid immersion into the world of the Quds Force, which quickly began to shower him with money. On several occasions, Yektaparast was paid with dollar-stuffed suitcases: for the German synagogue attacks he received $5 million.

Contact was regular, and in multiple locations, including at the Quds Force’s HQ in the Afsariyeh neighbourhood of south-east Tehran, as well as in restaurants, cars and elsewhere.

He began working with their operatives – these ranged from soldiers and killers of ruthless efficacy to Hamid, a ‘short fat bully’ responsible for arranging the entry and exit of assets to and from Iran.

Among Yektaparast’s key contacts was a man named ‘Sayeed’ (in reality Mohsen Bozorgi from Unit 840). Through him, Yektaparast began to understand how the Quds Force worked.

Yektaparast was not always impressed with the Quds Force. He believed most of the terror activities abroad were carried out not by Quds Force operatives but by paid agents like him.

Ramin Yektaparast was well paid for his criminal activities around the globe. He is pictured with two luxury cars

He had links to criminals across the world. However, Yektaparast was assassinated in Iran after fleeing from Germany 

As well as being linked to alleged terror plots, Iranian forces have also tried to recruit spies in the British military. 

Among them includes Daniel Khalife – a ‘hapless’ young soldier who was jailed in February for 14 years and three months for espionage. 

The 23-year-old was caught spying for Iran before then fleeing prison by clinging to the bottom of a food truck – before again being caught by the authorities. 

He claimed to have been on a one-man ‘double agent’ mission but was labelled an ‘attention seeker’ by a judge when he was sentenced at Woolwich Crown Court in London. 

Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Khalife – who was ignored when he contacted MI6 and MI5 in his attempts to become a double agent – had been motivated by ‘a selfish desire to show off’ and described him as ‘a dangerous fool’.

While acting as a spy, Khalife ‘exposed military personnel to serious harm’ by collecting sensitive information and passing it to agents of Iran. He was paid in cash and told handlers he would stay in the military for 25-plus years for them.

In September 2023, Khalife escaped from category B prison HMP Wandsworth in South West London by clinging to the underside of a food delivery truck. He was caught on a canal towpath by a plainclothes detective days later after a major search.

Prosecutors in his trial said Khalife played ‘a cynical game’, claiming he wanted a career as a double agent to help the British intelligence services, when in fact he gathered ‘a very large body of restricted and classified material’.

Former soldier Daniel Khalife was jailed for spying for Iran and escaping from prison 

Daniel Khalife is pictured after his arrest on a canal towpath in London on September 9, 2023

Khalife was sentenced to six years for committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, and another six years – consisting of five years in prison and one on licence – for eliciting information about members of the armed forces. The judge also passed a sentence of two years and three months for the jail break.

Last November, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court found that Khalife had breached the Official Secrets Act and the Terrorism Act. He was cleared of carrying out a bomb hoax and had already admitted during his trial to escaping from Wandsworth prison.

But it’s not just military personnel allegedly in the sights of Iranian spies – British Muslims and Jewish civilians are also being recruited, intelligence sources have claimed. 

Recruiters from the feared IRGC approach British Shias visiting religious sites in Iran and Iraq.

They are told to return to the UK and gather information on prominent British Jews or targets such as synagogues, Israeli and British officials have separately told the Mail.

Some spy on British-based Iranian dissidents, whom the Tehran regime accuses of fomenting unrest back home.

Last year, an Israeli official said that since Hamas’s October 7 massacre, they had given a higher-than-usual number of warnings to the UK, alerting this country to potential attacks by Iranians or their proxies.

Daniel Khalife, pictured on October 21, 2021. He was jailed for more than 14 years for spying and escaping prison 

A source said: ‘We do not know the scale of Iranian agents inside Europe and the UK , but all it takes is for one to slip through the net.’ 

Experts have also warned that some Iranians who come to study at British universities as international students on state scholarships are also spies.

Kasra Aarabi, of the United Against Nuclear Iran think-tank, said IRGC recruiters did not focus on hiring British Iranians, who are usually secular and oppose the Ayatollah regime. But British Shias who originated from Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon were targeted at the Arbaeen festival in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala, which attracts up to 20 million pilgrims a year.

Most British Muslims belong to the Sunni sect of Islam. But it is estimated there are up to 400,000 Muslims who belong to the Shia sect, which is the state religion of Iran and sees itself as the protector of Shias across the world.

A Whitehall source said when the IRGC wanted to assassinate or kidnap anyone on UK soil, it often used British-based organised criminal networks.

But information gathered by British spies may be used to carry out the attacks, one source said, adding: ‘The reason why the IRGC uses organised criminal networks to carry out the work here is because thankfully it is very difficult for Iranian spies to operate on British soil.’

The Ayatollah regime has targeted Iran International – a Farsi-language channel based in Chiswick, west London – accusing it of fomenting protests and demonstrations at home, especially after the death of student Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

Ms Amini was violently assaulted by the country’s morality police for not wearing her headscarf correctly, and later died in hospital, sparking protests across the globe. 

The IRGC is a violent, Islamist-extremist organisation that was founded by acolytes of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini (pictured) to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran’s core values

An Iranian cleric walks near a huge wall painting of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Top-L), and late supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (Top-R) in a street in Tehran

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said that there was a severe threat from Iran’s ‘aggressive intelligence services’ to kidnap or kill UK-based people

A British-based people smuggler-turned-informant was paid almost £200,000 by the IRGC to assassinate two British journalists who worked for the channel.

The Government has sanctioned five individuals linked to the attempted assassinations.

In December, Chechen criminal Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev, 31, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of spying on the headquarters of Iran International in order to carry out a terror attack.

Counter-terrorism police said Dovtaev belonged to a European organised criminal network which was hired to carry out the attack..

MI5 and counter-terror police say that since the start of 2022, the Iranian regime has tried to kill or harm at least 15 British-based Iranian dissidents, sometimes publicly calling for their murders.

And the IRGC has also been accused of sending an Iranian couple to Sweden in 2015, using the cover of Afghan asylum seekers.

The couple lived in the country as a ‘sleeper cell’ until 2021 when they were activated to apparently assassinate three prominent Jews. But they were arrested by security services.

Last year, it was reported that the Islamic College, a Shia educational institution based in Willesden Green, north-west London, had strong links to the Al-Mustafa University in Iran and sent students to its campus in the country.

Islamic College principal Dr Isa Jahangir was reported as the ‘representative’ of Al-Mustafa in the UK on pro-Iranian news websites. Al-Mustafa was sanctioned by the US Treasury for being a recruiting ground for the IRGC.

The college said at the time that claims of its links and that of Dr Jahangir to Al-Mustafa were ‘unfounded’.

Terorism expert Professor Anthony Glees said: ‘This is a serious threat that needs to be addressed. IRGC is behind Hamas and the Houthis, and it is also running these spying networks here. British Iranians need to be very careful when they go back to Iran.’

The Home Office has previously said: ‘The UK will always stand up to threats from foreign nations. We continually assess potential threats.’ 

***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk