Proscription of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would help the UK address domestic threats, even if it would have little impact on the Guard itself, a counterterrorism expert has told The National.
Calls to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organisation have intensified after eight men, seven of them Iranian nationals, were arrested in two separate counterterrorism operations over the weekend. One investigation included a group of five men who were planning to "target specific premises", the Met Police said on Sunday.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described the suspects’ planned activities as among the “biggest counter-state threats … seen in recent years”. Three Iranian nationals, aged 39, 44 and 55, were arrested at separate addresses in north-west and west London, under the National Security Act 2023.
In a separate operation a 46-year-old Iranian man was arrested in west London, and four other men aged between 29 and 40 were arrested in Swindon, Rochdale, Stockport and the Manchester area. The five were arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act, under the Terrorism Act 2006. The Manchester suspect’s nationality has yet to be established.
Cdr Dominic Murphy, head of the Met's Counter Terrorism Command, stressed that they were not linking the two investigations. He said the operations were "certainly significant and it is unusual for us to conduct this scale of activity".
Just eight months ago, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said the agency had responded to 20 Iran-backed plots in the UK. He warned that Iranian state actors “make extensive use of criminals as proxies”, from international drug smugglers to petty crooks. Two Romanian nationals were charged in December over the stabbing of Iranian-Italian journalist Pooria Zeraati, a known critic of the Iranian regime, in London las year.
Shutting down IRGC channels in the UK
The new arrests and Mr McCallum’s revelations have amplified calls to proscribe the IRGC. Labour MP Luke Akehurst and Reform leader Nigel Farage are among those who publicly called for the proscription in the wake of the Met Police's announcement on Sunday, according to local media reports.
"How much more evidence does the UK government need to proscribe the IRGC and snap back JCPOA sanctions?" said Alan Mendoza, who heads the Henry Jackson Society, a conservative think tank.
Counterterrorism and IRGC expert Kyle Orton said that while proscription was unlikely to have a significant impact on the IRGC itself, it would give the UK the ability to stop its financing of extremist activity in the UK, and shut down mosques that are part of it's network. "That's extremely difficult at the moment," Mr Orton told The National.
The Islamic Centre of England in Maida Vale is subject to a continuing extremism inquiry by the Charities Commission, which began in 2022, after it held two events eulogising Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, who was subject to UK sanctions, in 2020. The UK government has sanctioned the IRGC and many individuals within it, but has stopped short of designating the agency as a terrorist organisation, despite calls to do so.
It is believed that the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has opposed the blacklisting, fearing it will interfere with the UK’s ability to engage with Iran, Mr Orton said. He said the force’s international operations had been “paralysed” in the past year by Israel, which has conducted significant attacks on IRGC and proxy bases across the Middle East.
But the Iranian embassy in London could still be recruiting or handling operatives plotting threats to the UK. “IRGC extra-regional ops have been paralysed by Israel. I would be surprised if the tip-off didn’t come from the Israelis,” he said. “The (Iranian) operatives usually recruit out of the embassy.”
The IRGC typically works with established criminal networks to conduct its overseas operations, making them appear "two to three steps removed" from the act, Mr Orton said. One example was the attempted assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the US, Adel Al Jubeir, in 2011, which allegedly involved a Mexican drug cartel. Orton estimates that up to half of Iranian embassy staff globally could be working undercover for the IRGC.
Doubts about designation
There were doubts that the new Labour government would move ahead with proscription, particularly as the US President Donald Trump seeks a new nuclear deal with Iran. “The fact these (October) revelations have been in the public domain for months and nothing happened raises doubts about whether one more will cause a change,” Mr Orton said “Britain’s decision will be determined by the need to manage the relationship with the US,” he said.
Ms Cooper did not comment on whether the UK government would be moving towards proscription in the wake of the arrests on Sunday night.
“These are major operations that have taken place and the continuing investigation is immensely important, and of course it involves Iranian nationals in both investigations,” she said. “We are supporting the police and the security agencies in the investigations that they are taking and the security assessments that they are doing,” she said.
The arrests have sent ripples through the communities where they took place. Rochdale mother Amy Openshaw told the Manchester Evening News that she heard “lots of screaming” when counterterror police burst into a neighbouring home.
"The children were out in the garden and they came running in to me saying there’s men with helmets, masks and guns outside,” she said. "I have come out and I got told to go back inside. We went upstairs. And I just heard a massive bang. Either a flashbang or them blowing the door off. Then I heard lots and lots of screaming.
"Then the guy got taken out with hardly anything on. He had just underpants or shorts on. No T-shirt, no shoes. He got told to get on the floor. I could hear them saying ‘get on that floor'. They had him on his knees."
