MI5: Iran is now targeting military bases in Britain; more than 50 arrests in a year, Tehran speaks of a “false flag operation”

Iran has begun to target military installations in the United Kingdom, the Director General of the British domestic security service MI5, Sir Ken McCallum, warned on Tuesday, October 13, in the annual public threat assessment he presented from the service’s headquarters, Thames House in London. “In the last 12 months, our Iran-linked operations have led to more than 50 arrests in the UK,” he said, adding that “the other big change this year is Iran’s ambition to hit harder targets, such as military installations”.

From dissidents to air bases

McCallum described Iran as a state that outsources its violence to third parties, using criminal networks to intimidate dissidents, Iranian media and Israeli targets, with much of the aggression directed at the Jewish community. He declined to comment on the RAF Fairford case because of the ongoing investigation, but noted that in countries close to Iranian territory the Revolutionary Guards have “fairly deep experience” of using conventional and hybrid means.

The speech came a day after British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told Parliament that the incident of September 27 around the base, which hosted American bombers, was “almost certainly” directed by the Revolutionary Guards. After the incident the US withdrew its bombers from RAF Fairford, London imposed sanctions on two Iranians, and Greece was among the 29 countries that condemned the Iranian attacks.

Seven men have been arrested in total over the case, five near the base on September 27 and two later in London, and according to Counter Terrorism Policing all are free on conditions while the investigation continues. Two more suspects were arrested last week near RAF Molesworth. British bases have been targeted outside Britain too: in March Nicosia confirmed a drone strike on the Akrotiri base in Cyprus.

Tehran’s response

Iran’s Foreign Ministry, in a statement issued on Monday evening, called the attribution of the case to the Revolutionary Guards an “ugly conspiracy” and a “clumsy false flag operation”. It argued that London did not produce sufficient evidence and that the accusations serve to avoid accountability for Britain’s involvement in the war against Iran, which began on February 28. By contrast, EU High Representative Kaja Kallas expressed solidarity with the British government, saying that Iran’s campaign of intimidation “extends well beyond the Middle East”.

Russia, the “number one aggressor”

On Russia, McCallum said it remains the “number one aggressor” and that its military and intelligence services are “once again escalating attempts at hybrid warfare”, taking care to stay below the threshold of NATO’s Article 5. He noted that, with Moscow’s traditional covert footprint “shattered” by nearly 1,000 expulsions since the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is paying criminals to do its work. Overall, threats from foreign states have quadrupled, and MI5 now devotes more resources to countering them than it did during the Cold War.