Germany-based aid worker barred exit from Iran after humanitarian trip - SWR

Mohammadi told committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes in an urgent phone call that the threats had come “both through her lawyers and through indirect channels.”

“I have been directly and indirectly threatened with ‘physical elimination’ by agents of the regime,” she said, according to the committee.

The warnings demanded that she cease all public activity inside Iran and end international advocacy and media engagement, the committee said.

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee is deeply concerned about the threats against Narges Mohammadi and, more broadly, all Iranian citizens with a critical voice,” Frydnes said. He urged Iranian authorities to respect fundamental rights, including freedom of expression.

Facing prison return, Mohammadi defies order

Mohammadi, who is currently on medical furlough from Tehran’s Evin Prison, has refused two official orders to return and said she would not go back voluntarily. “If they want me, they should pay the price and arrest me themselves — I will not go to prison quietly,” she said in a statement on July 7, describing her stance as civil disobedience.

She is serving a combined 13-year, 9-month sentence on charges including “spreading propaganda” against the Islamic Republic. While temporarily released, she has continued to speak out in interviews and online events with human rights groups.

Last week, she told ABC News the Iranian establishment was using the aftermath of its 12-day war with Israel to escalate repression against political and civil activists.

The report highlights Tehran’s escalating willingness to carry out assassinations, espionage, and cyber attacks within the United Kingdom, and calls for a fundamental shift in British strategy toward the Islamic Republic.

The 260-page report draws on classified intelligence and interviews with senior officials across MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the Cabinet Office, and the Home Office.

It paints a detailed picture of Iran’s evolving threat posture, concluding that the Tehran "is a pragmatic actor, often driven more by opportunism than ideology," and increasingly capable of projecting that pragmatism into hostile activity on British soil.

“The Iranian regime’s fundamental objective is to ensure the survival and security of the Islamic Republic,” the ISC said. “It has an acute historic sense of vulnerability. This shapes, directly or indirectly, its actions.”

Since January 2022, there have been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap against British nationals or UK-based individuals, according to the report.

Tehran's embassy in London issued a statement expressing "its strong protest and categorical rejection of the baseless, politically motivated and hostile claims," denying any acts of violence, espionage or cyber attacks on UK soil.

British intelligence chief Ken McCallum, head of MI5, said last year: “Iranian state actors make extensive use of criminals as proxies—from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks."

These operations, aimed primarily at dissidents and critics of the Islamic Republic, mirror tactics Iran has employed across the globe in continents including Africa, Asia and Europe.

Targeting critics

Iran has significantly stepped up efforts to intimidate dissident media outlets and Tehran opponents based in the UK, the report said. "That sharp increase in the physical threat represents the biggest change over the last 12 to 18 months in the overall Iranian threat to the UK."

"Of greater concern are Iran’s attempts to intimidate Iranian dissidents and employees of media organisations – such as Iran International – in the UK and beyond," the report said. "Some reports suggest these efforts to intimidate the regime’s perceived opponents have had a significant impact on the Iranian diaspora community in the UK."

In another section on increase in physical threats, the report said the increase in the physical threat shows how the domestic situation in Iran can indirectly affect the Iranian threat to the UK.

"In particular, MI5 told the Committee that it has seen persistent targeting of Iranian media organisations operating in the UK, primarily Iran International. BBC Persian and Manoto TV – which are broadcast from the UK – are also prominent targets, as they are viewed by Iran as 'deeply undermining of the Iranian regime.'"

'Greatest level of threat'

“The threat of physical attack on individuals in the UK is now the greatest level of threat we currently face from Iran,” the Homeland Security Group told the Committee. “It is comparable with the threat posed by Russia.”

"Since the beginning of 2022, there has been a significant increase in the physical threat posed by Iran to those residing in the UK. It has significantly increased both in pace and with regard to the number of threats."

MP Kevan Jones, the committee chair, said in a statement: "Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with."

UK-based targets and broader goals

According to the report, Tehran seeks to reduce the UK's military footprint in the Middle East, undermine its alliance with the United States and Israel, and suppress criticism of the Islamic Republic—including from exiles and journalists living in the UK.

“Iran and the UK have a complex history,” the report said. “Iran’s leadership perceives the UK to be a significant adversary—a ‘cunning fox’—opposed to the Iranian regime’s values and, as part of the West, seeking regime change.”

The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) Chair echoed these concerns, telling the ISC: “There is a deep suspicion [of the UK] for historical reasons as well as relatively contemporary reasons.”

Espionage and cyber operations

Iran’s espionage activity, the report warns, is “significant” and directed mainly through cyber capabilities but also via human agents. While the UK may sit just below the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia in Tehran’s targeting priorities, intelligence officials warned that this could quickly shift.

“We are a priority target ... for Iran in an espionage sense,” the JIC Chair told the Committee. “Because they regard the United Kingdom as a particularly malevolent opponent of the Islamic Republic and, secondly, because of the role we play in nuclear negotiations and the relationship which we have with the United States.”

Cyber operations are another critical tool in Iran’s asymmetric arsenal, according to the report. It describes Tehran as “an aggressive cyber actor with extensive capabilities,” albeit less sophisticated than Russia or China.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that many British entities are currently not equipped to detect or defend against Iranian cyber intrusions.

“It is essential to raise the resilience bar,” the ISC wrote. “If there is good cyber security and resilience across the UK, then it is less likely that Iran’s cyber-attacks will be successful.”

Policy gaps

The Committee welcomed some steps taken by the UK Government since receiving the draft report in April 2024, including the designation of Iran under the Enhanced Tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme and new legal powers enabling the proscription of state-backed entities such as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

However, the Committee criticized the government for its approach to Iran. “The Government's policy on Iran has suffered from a focus on crisis management and has been primarily driven by concerns over Iran's nuclear program—to the exclusion of other issues,” the report said.

“'Fire-fighting' has prevented the Government from developing a real understanding of Iran, with a lack of Iran-specific expertise across Government.”

One critique in the report centered on the absence of Iran-specific expertise across the British Government. “We were particularly struck by one critique: if you have people running policy in the Foreign Office who don't speak a word of Persian, then that is a fat lot of good, to be honest."

The release of the report comes amid increasing scrutiny of Iran’s influence across Europe. Earlier this week, Italian authorities uncovered a broad network of individuals allegedly working to promote the Islamic Republic’s narrative in Europe.

“Whilst Iran favors proportionality in relation to conflict, this is not always achievable or pragmatic,” the Committee wrote. “It wants to avoid a full-scale war. It has therefore focused on the development of ‘asymmetric’ capabilities and a network of aligned militant and terrorist organizations across the Middle East to spread influence and deter potential aggressors.”

The Committee urged the UK Government and its allies to take a firmer stance in making clear that Iran’s hostile activities within the UK are unacceptable.

“We commend the efforts of MI5 and the police in response to what is now a serious threat, and we encourage the Government and its international partners to make it clear to Iran—at every opportunity—that such attacks would indeed constitute an attack on the UK and would receive the appropriate response.”

“If Trump leaves the clerics in charge, the US will eventually have to deal with an even worse conflict—as it did in Iraq,” the outlet wrote in an opinion piece titled The Perfect Time for Regime Change in Iran just weeks after the ceasefire to end the Iran-Israel war, in which the US carried out strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The paper referenced past American experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq to argue that strategic hesitancy has repeatedly led to prolonged wars and lost opportunities.

The commentary argued that Iran’s threat goes beyond its nuclear program. “Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies endangers regional stability and US lives,” it said, the US listing Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1984.

“Iranian assistance with Russia’s illegal oil exports reduces America’s ability to pressure Moscow on the Ukraine war," it added.

Citing a July 3 interview with Iran’s deputy foreign minister, who told NBC News that Iran’s enrichment policy “has not changed,” the paper said Tehran remains committed to advancing its nuclear capabilities despite the strikes carried out by the US, which President Donald Trump said had 'obliterated' Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

The newspaper described the strikes as a tactical success but warned that failure to follow through strategically would repeat the mistake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

“The Iranian regime will remain a threat to America until different leaders occupy Tehran,” it wrote.

The piece concluded that the current moment, following heavy blows to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and its regional allies, offers a rare opportunity to “eliminate the ideological source” of the threat by targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. “History suggests the time to act is now.”

Citing Pezeshkian’s comments to US political commentator Tucker Carlson, the letter said the president’s openness to renewed negotiations with the United States and cooperation with the IAEA sent the wrong signal to adversaries after the recent conflict involving US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets.

“From a national security standpoint, such messaging risks inviting further aggression,” the MPs wrote.

“If before June 12 there were diverse views on resisting American overreach, this war generated rare unity around the necessity of confronting the United States and its proxy, the Zionist regime."

In the interview published Monday, Pezeshkian told Carlson: “We see no problem in reentering the negotiations. But how are we going to trust the United States again?” He added, “They totally ruined and destroyed diplomacy.”

The MPs also condemned Pezeshkian’s attempt to separate Israel’s actions from US responsibility.

“The Zionist regime is America’s military outpost in the region and could not have launched a war without Washington’s backing,” they wrote.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Carlson that Israel was seeking to embroil the United States in a regional "forever war," in his first international interview since US and Israeli attacks on Iran following Israel's surprise attacks of June 13.

Referring to the Supreme Leader’s speech on February 17, the letter reminded Pezeshkian that “a sense of weakness encourages the enemy to attack,” and urged him to adopt the “language of power” when addressing Western media.

The president’s effort to explain the meaning of “Death to America” was also rebuked. In his interview, Pezeshkian said the slogan refers to “death to crime, death to killing and carnage,” rather than targeting Americans directly.

Lawmakers called this a deviation from the position of the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini.

A senior Israeli official told Reuters the stockpile — estimated at 400 kilograms enriched to 60 percent — “was not removed and has not been moved since,” suggesting Iran made no attempt to safeguard the material before or after the strikes.

The official, who was not named, added that Iran may still be able to access the stockpile at Isfahan, but moving it would be very difficult.

“The Iranians might still be able to gain access to Isfahan but it would be hard to remove any of the material there,” wrote Reuters, citing the official.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had assessed before the war that most of the 60 percent enriched uranium was being stored at the Isfahan site.

Satellite imagery taken before US strikes on three key Iranian nuclear sites showed “unusual” activity near the entrance to Iran’s Fordow enrichment facility.16 cargo trucks were seen Thursday on the access road to the tunnel entrance, but by Friday most had relocated to an area about one kilometer northwest, Maxar Technologies said.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors have not publicly confirmed the condition of the stockpile since the strikes, and Iran has not allowed independent verification of the facilities since the war began.

The IAEA said on Friday that its team of inspectors had safely departed Iran to return to its headquarters in Vienna, after a new law barred cooperation with the UN body.

Tehran has accused the IAEA of sharing sensitive data with Israel and the US, and of failing to condemn last month’s airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

While Iran has denied ending cooperation entirely, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said coordination with the agency would now be managed through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

Israel must prevent Iran from restoring its prewar capabilities, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday.

“We need to formulate an enforcement program to prevent Iran from reviving the capabilities it had before,” Katz said. “The Iranians will try in every possible way to learn their lessons and recover. The enemy is learning and preparing — and our challenge is to step up our abilities so that we are not taken by surprise.”

US President Donald Trump says the airstrikes obliterated the sites, but nuclear experts have expressed caution over the full extent of the damage, raising the possibility that some nuclear assets may have been hidden.

France’s top intelligence official, Nicolas Lerner, said Tuesday that the strikes had “very seriously affected” all stages of Iran’s nuclear program but acknowledged, a small part of Iran’s highly-enriched uranium stockpile had been destroyed, but the rest remained in the hands of the authorities.

"Today we have indications (on where it is), but we cannot say with certainty as long as the IAEA does not restart its work. It's very important. We won't have the capacity to trace it (the stocks)," Lerner said.