Iranian Threat Already Inside Britain: UK Media Says Country Faces Hybrid Shadow War

The Iran­ian threat inside Britain extends well beyond sanc­tions breach­es, as report­ed on 30 June 2025 by The Tele­graph. The arti­cle revealed that UK author­i­ties were con­fronting a hybrid shad­ow war of Iran­ian influ­ence, includ­ing covert IRGC activ­i­ty and dig­i­tal dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns. The arti­cle begins:

Sanc­tions breach­es are just the tip of the ice­berg, senior secu­ri­ty sources said. “There is a shad­ow war going on,” one offi­cial told The Tele­graph. “The Iran­ian threat is already here, inside Britain.” The warn­ing comes as the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to intro­duce new laws to tack­le for­eign inter­fer­ence, includ­ing requir­ing for­eign agents to reg­is­ter or face jail. Min­is­ters believe the threat from Iran is now as seri­ous as that from Rus­sia, with Iran­ian banks and com­pa­nies under sanc­tions still oper­at­ing in Lon­don. Secu­ri­ty offi­cials say the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) is behind much of the activity.

Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/06/30/iranian-threat-already-inside-britain/

Key Points

• UK secu­ri­ty sources warn that the Iran­ian threat already inside Britain extends well beyond sanc­tions breach­es and includes covert influence.

• The British gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing new laws to com­bat for­eign inter­fer­ence, requir­ing reg­is­tra­tion of for­eign agents or crim­i­nal penalties.

• Offi­cials equate the seri­ous­ness of the Iran­ian threat to that posed by Rus­sia, cit­ing ongo­ing IRGC-linked activ­i­ties in London.

• Iran­ian oper­a­tions lever­age pro­pa­gan­da, illic­it finance, and cyber tac­tics to under­mine British insti­tu­tions and nation­al security.

Iran – UK Influence Operations: Tehran’s Networks and the British Response

Iran­ian influ­ence oper­a­tions tar­get­ing the UK man­i­fest through a web of Tehran-linked orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Islam­ic Human Rights Com­mis­sion (IHRC), that have formed alliances with far-left move­ments and pro­mot­ed ide­o­log­i­cal cam­paigns such as the endorse­ment of the Rushdie fat­wa. The IHRC has also orga­nized boy­cotts against films crit­i­cal of Iran­ian nar­ra­tives, coor­di­nat­ed annu­al Quds Day march­es, and joined inter­na­tion­al cam­paigns alleg­ing West­ern dou­ble stan­dards. Their oper­a­tional reach extends to crowd­fund­ing for Israeli asy­lum seekers.

British author­i­ties have recent­ly placed Iran’s intel­li­gence and secu­ri­ty estab­lish­ment on the high­est tier of a for­eign influ­ence watch­list and intro­duced the For­eign Influ­ence Reg­is­tra­tion Scheme, requir­ing reg­is­tra­tion of all polit­i­cal activ­i­ties linked to Iran’s state, intel­li­gence ser­vices, and prox­ies. This response address­es a per­sis­tent “shad­ow war” that includes pro­pa­gan­da, illic­it finance, and dig­i­tal dis­in­for­ma­tion, with Tehran’s net­works orga­niz­ing advo­ca­cy and media cam­paigns to ampli­fy Iran­ian nar­ra­tives and sophis­ti­cat­ed net­works of insti­tu­tions and indi­vid­u­als embed­ded in British soci­ety exploit­ing legal and social vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties to expand Tehran’s reach. Ana­lysts high­light that these oper­a­tions are rein­forced by cyber­at­tacks, rad­i­cal­iza­tion efforts, and exploita­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic norms, pos­ing a sig­nif­i­cant threat to UK polit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty and soci­etal cohesion.

Exter­nal References:

• Britain Against Iran­ian Influ­ence Oper­a­tions – INSS

• The U.K. Launch­es New Strat­e­gy Against Iran­ian Influ­ence – Mid­dle East Forum

• Iran’s net­work of influ­ence in the UK exposed in new NUFDI report – The Jerusalem Post

Dis­claimer:

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