Iran hosting and protecting Al Qaeda leadership, says UK

Intelligence officials in the UK believe that Iran is hosting the headquarters of Al Qaeda, giving the terrorist leadership a lifeline after years of setbacks.

“The transactional arrangement between Iran and the senior leadership of Al Qaeda is concerning,” Parliament's security and intelligence committee reported.

“Being based in Iran has allowed [Al Qaeda] to retain some oversight of franchises internationally, creating a complex intelligence landscape, as Iran is a less accessible environment for the West than other parts of the Middle East – which, in turn, may have increased the [Al Qaeda] threat.”

It said a group of senior Al Qaeda leaders, known as the Hattin Committee, which was located in Iran in 2022, was benefitting from protection from western counter-terrorism.

The committee said that Richard Moore, head of the Secret Intelligence Service − commonly known as MI6 − had advised them of this.

"As the chief of SIS told us, the Iranian regime has been 'extremely pragmatic for many years in terms of the partners it will enlist, if they are prepared to work against its common enemies in the shape of the United States, the West, Israel in particular'," reported the committee.

The new group of leaders represents a focal point for Al Qaeda after much of its leadership was killed, including Osama bin Laden, in 2011. The return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan has not seen a formal return of its ally. The death of Ayman Al Zawahiri, bin Laden’s successor in 2022, led to the accession of Sayf Al Adl, who is reportedly based in Iran.

"On the one hand, being based in Iran has allowed Al Qaeda to retain some oversight of franchises internationally, creating a complex intelligence landscape, as Iran is a less accessible environment for the West than other parts of the Middle East − which, in turn, may have increased the Al Qaeda threat," the report added.

One of the recommendations of the report was that the government increase pressure on Iran to abandon the arrangement, which it put alongside its support for Hezbollah.

"The government should use all the tools at its disposal to degrade the relationship between Iran and groups such as Al-Qaeda and Lebanese Hezbollah, including publicly calling out Iran’s attempts to protect such terrorist groups," it added.

The hosting arrangement is one factor behind the “sharp increase” in the direct challenges Iran poses to the UK. The committee said pressure on Iran from the UK should prioritise reducing its support for Hezbollah and Al Qaeda.

Committee chairman Lord Beamish said Iranian interference in the UK ranged from infiltration, espionage and cyber attacks to direct threat to lives within Britain.

“Iran poses a wide-ranging, persistent and unpredictable threat to the UK, UK nationals and UK interests,” he said. “As the committee was told, Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with.”

The 241-page report includes a recommendation that the British government considers whether it is “legally possible and practicable” to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and makes a full statement to Parliament on the issue.

The main finding was that the “physical threat” from Iran had “significantly increased”, focused on Iranian dissidents and Jewish and Israeli interests, and is “comparable with the threat posed by Russia”.

That sharp increase in the physical threat is the biggest change over the previous 12 to 18 months in the overall Iranian threat to the UK.

“The Iranian [physical] threat … manifests itself in the United Kingdom, principally against people who the Iranian regime believes pose a threat of some sort to the regime itself, which is, after all, the main area of safeguarding for the Islamic Republic,” the then head of the Joint Intelligence Committee is quoted as saying.

The main driver of the Iranian activity is directed at dissent and anti-regime activities in London. Iran’s primary objective in building its UK network of criminal, militant and terrorist ties is regime survival and stability.

“What we see here is the sort of prosecution of what they see as internal matters on UK soil,” another intelligence official said.

The parliamentarians characterised the official response as “firefighting” and said they were concerned that government policy on Iran has suffered from a focus on crisis management.

“Firefighting has prevented the government from developing a real understanding of Iran, with a lack of Iran-specific expertise,” it said.

The report from the nine-member committee, which scrutinises the work of Britain’s intelligence agencies, only covers the period up to August 2023 and publication was delayed by last year’s election.

Between the beginning of 2022 and the end of the committee’s evidence-gathering, the report found there had been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap of British nationals or UK residents.

The committee urged the British government to make clear to Tehran that such attempts would “constitute an attack on the UK and would receive the appropriate response”.

The Iranian embassy in the UK rejected the findings, saying in a statement: “The suggestion that Iran engages in or supports acts of physical violence, espionage, or cyber aggression on British soil or against British interests abroad, is wholly rejected.

“Such accusations are not only defamatory but also dangerous, fuelling unnecessary tensions and undermining diplomatic norms.”