Irananian Influence Operations in Sweden Employ Mosques and Academia

In its 2023–2024 secu­ri­ty assess­ment, the Swedish Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice (Säk­er­het­spolisen, or Säpo) sin­gled out the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran (IRI) as a major nation­al threat. Säpo not­ed that the IRI’s intel­li­gence ser­vices rou­tine­ly engaged in espi­onage to cir­cum­vent inter­na­tion­al sanc­tions and obtain advanced tech­nol­o­gy and exper­tise from Swedish research insti­tu­tions and indus­tries. Although no spe­cif­ic sec­tors were named, Iran—alongside Rus­sia and China—was cit­ed as a state seek­ing to devel­op high-tech capa­bil­i­ties in defi­ance of export con­trols. Beyond its pur­suit of strate­gi­cal­ly sen­si­tive or sanc­tioned tech­nolo­gies, the IRI was impli­cat­ed in assas­si­na­tion plots on Swedish soil that tar­get­ed Iran­ian dis­si­dents and cit­i­zens of hos­tile states. Tehran relied on prox­ies to con­duct intel­li­gence gath­er­ing and ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties, with cyber espi­onage play­ing a key role in track­ing and mon­i­tor­ing dissidents.

Read more: https://www.eurasiareview.com/27092025-a-growing-security-threat-iranian-intelligence-operations-in-scandinavia-part-two-sweden-analysis/

Key Points

• Imam Mohsen Haki­mol­lahi of the Imam Ali Islam­ic Cen­ter was deport­ed from Swe­den in Feb­ru­ary 2025 after the Swedish Secu­ri­ty Ser­vice deter­mined the mosque engaged in activ­i­ties threat­en­ing Iran­ian dis­si­dents and nation­al security.
• Iran infil­trat­ed the Swedish Insti­tute of Inter­na­tion­al Affairs, where its direc­tor, Rouzbeh Par­si, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Iran Experts Ini­tia­tive, coor­di­nat­ed by the Iran­ian For­eign Min­istry, to influ­ence West­ern per­cep­tions of the regime.
• The Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps hacked a Swedish SMS ser­vice in August 2023, send­ing near­ly 15,000 mes­sages urg­ing recip­i­ents to seek revenge against those respon­si­ble for Quran burnings.
• Iran weaponized the Quran burn­ings con­tro­ver­sy to under­mine Swe­den’s NATO acces­sion by stok­ing domes­tic insta­bil­i­ty and height­en­ing ten­sions with Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan in align­ment with Rus­si­a’s interests.

Influence Operations in Europe: State Media, Bot Networks, and Cultural Infiltration

Iran­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions in Europe have evolved into a sophis­ti­cat­ed, mul­ti-lay­ered cam­paign com­bin­ing state media pro­pa­gan­da, bot net­works, cul­tur­al infil­tra­tion, and AI-gen­er­at­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion to advance Tehran’s strate­gic inter­ests. At the cen­ter of this appa­ra­tus stands the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB), which serves as “Tor­ture TV,” using forced con­fes­sions obtained through tor­ture to intim­i­date the Iran­ian pop­u­la­tion while con­duct­ing glob­al pro­pa­gan­da oper­a­tions. Tehran tripled IRIB’s 2025 bud­get to $480 mil­lion, enabling oper­a­tions across eight inter­na­tion­al TV chan­nels and radio pro­grams in 32 lan­guages span­ning the Mid­dle East, Europe, and Africa.

Press TV, found­ed in 2007 as IRIB’s Eng­lish-lan­guage flag­ship, had its UK broad­cast­ing license revoked in Jan­u­ary 2012 after British reg­u­la­tor Ofcom found the chan­nel was run­ning edi­to­r­i­al oper­a­tions from Tehran rather than the UK. The U.S. Trea­sury Depart­ment des­ig­nat­ed IRIB in 2013, not­ing it acts “as a crit­i­cal tool in the Iran­ian gov­ern­men­t’s mass sup­pres­sion and cen­sor­ship cam­paign,” while the U.S. Jus­tice Depart­ment seized 36 Iran­ian-linked web­sites, includ­ing PressTV, in June 2021 for sanc­tions vio­la­tions. Meta exposed IRIB’s covert influ­ence oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the Unit­ed States in 2021, with oper­a­tions linked to the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Vir­tu­al Media front group.

Iran oper­ates hun­dreds of web­sites and social media accounts in at least 32 lan­guages, with the dis­in­for­ma­tion net­work pri­mar­i­ly attrib­uted to the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps, the Islam­ic Radios and Tele­vi­sions Union, and IRIB. In the Unit­ed King­dom, 1,332 fake pro­files sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly pro­mot­ed Scot­tish inde­pen­dence nar­ra­tives before abrupt­ly ceas­ing activ­i­ty dur­ing Iran’s nation­wide black­out on June 13, 2025, then resum­ing with pro-Iran­ian messaging—generating over 126,000 user engage­ments and reach­ing an esti­mat­ed 224 mil­lion poten­tial views.

Italy has been pen­e­trat­ed through over one mil­lion euros invest­ed in aca­d­e­m­ic pro­grams since 2009, with the Cul­tur­al Cen­ter of the Iran­ian Embassy in Rome serv­ing as an oper­a­tional hub coor­di­nat­ing cul­tur­al events while embassy per­son­nel con­duct sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions. Ger­many’s Islam­ic Cen­ter Ham­burg oper­ates as an out­post of the Iran­ian regime, serv­ing as an impor­tant pro­pa­gan­da cen­ter that spreads the social, polit­i­cal, and reli­gious val­ues of the Iran­ian state across Europe.

The regime has increas­ing­ly weaponized arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for pro­pa­gan­da pur­pos­es, with Iran­ian accounts using Chat­G­PT to cre­ate long-form polit­i­cal arti­cles for fake news sites pos­ing as both con­ser­v­a­tive and pro­gres­sive out­lets. At the same time, Iran has been deploy­ing AI-gen­er­at­ed videos on plat­forms like Tik­Tok that fab­ri­cate Israeli destruc­tion and glo­ri­fy Iran­ian lead­er­ship across mul­ti­ple lan­guages, includ­ing Far­si, Ara­bic, Hebrew, Eng­lish, and East Asian languages.

Exter­nal References:
— Foun­da­tion for Defense of Democ­ra­cies: 10 Things to Know About Tehran’s Pro­pa­gan­da Net­work, the Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broadcasting
— DFR­Lab: Iran’s Press TV in the for­eign influ­ence wilderness
— Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty: Recy­cled Videos And Pho­tos Fuel Iran’s Pro­pa­gan­da In Cov­er­age Of Con­flict With Israel

Dis­claimer:
The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.