Iran’s top military leader is dead - but his network still threatens Britain

18 June 2025, 10:35

By Professor Matt Qvortrup

You may not have heard of Hossein Salami - but his role was anything but obscure.

He led Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a state-sponsored terrorist organisation at the heart of Tehran’s regional power projection. Over the weekend, he was killed in an Israeli airstrike. But his death does not mean the threat has disappeared.

The question of whether states should assassinate foreign officials, leaders, or military officers is endlessly debated. But in the case of Hossein Salami, few have mourned his violent end. That silence speaks volumes, but it has everything to do with the organisation he led.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not just a military force; it is the spearhead of Iran’s ideological export project. Perhaps more than any other country, Iran uses the IRGC to spread its revolutionary Islamist agenda far beyond its borders. The group has a documented history of threatening lives in the United Kingdom - including plots to kill British citizens on British soil - both directly and through proxies.

Founded in 1979 after the fall of Iran’s secular (albeit autocratic) monarchy, the IRGC was created by the new Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, to safeguard the ideological purity of the Islamic Revolution. That meant hunting down dissenters at home - and it still does.

But the IRGC quickly looked outward. Today, it commands a bureaucracy of some 125,000 agents within Iran and operates far beyond its borders, infiltrating Shia Muslim communities across the Middle East and beyond.

When you hear about Hamas, Houthis, and Hezbollah – and probably other terrorist organisations starting with the letter ‘H’ - they have one thing in common: they are all sponsored, aided and abetted by the IRGC.

Perhaps, you are not too concerned about this. After all, Yemen, Gaza, and Lebanon are faraway places. So why should you care about this if you live in Yeovil, Gillingham, or Lambeth?

The answer is as chilling as it is often overlooked.

Last year, in October to be exact, Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, said that at least 20 IRGC-backed terror plots had been foiled in the UK in the last year.

According to the spy chief, the IRGC attempted plots present “potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents”.

He was not alone. According to MI6, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is a particular threat to the Jewish community in Britain.

By sponsoring programs for schools, universities, and clandestinely, civic organisations, the IRGC has been building a fifth column of radicalised Islamists within the UK.

The ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel means that part of this network might be activated. Idle speculation? Alarmist thinking?

Not at all, as of yesterday, intelligence sources – quoted in the I-newspaper- said there was an increased “risk to the UK on the domestic front from state-backed Iranian operations or 'lone wolf' attacks sparked by the conflict in the Middle East”.

So, you may wonder why nothing is happening. This threat is known. So, why the inaction?

Why has it not been ‘proscribed’, as it is called in the jargon. (For the uninitiated, this word means that it is illegal to belong to it. Just as it is unlawful to belong to groups such Islamic State (IS), and al-Qaida).

In fairness, the Labour Party Manifesto promised (albeit in vague terms) to proscribe the IRGC. But nothing has happened so far.

The reason, so we are told, is that it is too complicated to push this change through. Yet, other countries have done so. In Sweden, the then Social Democrat government proscribed the IRGC in 2023. So, there is no excuse for Britain not to do it.

The IRGC has a legacy of destruction, of murder, and of spreading hatred. Maybe this legacy explains why few are concerned that Mr Salami met his end.

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Professor Matt Qvortrup is Director of Research at the Henry Jackson Society.

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