DAVID PATRIKARAKOS: Iran’s waging a shadow battle in opposition to Britain – and imagine me, extra assaults ARE coming. No one can say we weren’t warned…

My first thought on hearing that counter-terrorism police had declared a ‘major incident’ near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and arrested several men for explosives offenses was a weary, ‘Not another one’.

When would-be atrocity becomes banal you know your country has a serious problem. At the time of writing, counterterrorism police are investigating whether the bomb plot is linked to Iran.

Counter-terrorism police are now investigating whether the alleged bomb plot is linked to Iran. As someone who has seen close up what Tehran’s monstrous regime is capable of, I believe they are right to do so.

It’s a serious charge to make in print. So why make it? Let’s start with the target. RAF Fairford is one of the few European airfields able to handle America’s B-1 and B-52 heavy bombers. After the US-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28, Britain allowed American forces to use it to launch strikes against Iranian missile sites.

The Iranians were furious. In July, their Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared Britain a ‘definite and legitimate target’ if it supported America’s war, specifically citing US bombers flying from British bases.

Whether Tehran lies behind what happened at Fairford remains to be seen. But if it was, no one in Whitehall can claim they weren’t warned – and even if it wasn’t, the problem we face from the mullahs nevertheless remains graver than ever.

From Tehran’s point of view, Britain is now helping wage a conventional war against it. British bases used to attack Iran are therefore fair game. But while the mullahs can strike US bases in the Middle East, conventional missile strikes against us aren’t practical. We’re just too far away.

So, they must get creative to continue to effectively prosecute their decades-long war against the leading Western powers. And, to give them their due, when it comes to murder and sabotage, creative they certainly are.

Fairford is one of the few European airfields able to handle America’s B-1 and B-52 heavy bombers

Iran has spent years developing other ways of reaching enemies it cannot easily hit with missiles, using, among other things, bombs and assassins to continue fighting.

Since 2022, MI5 and counter-terrorism police have disrupted more than 20 potentially lethal Iran-backed plots in Britain, including plans to kill or kidnap enemies of the regime.

Tehran has targeted dissidents, journalists and Jewish communities and institutions. Earlier this year I reported from Golders Green in north London after three masked men torched four ambulances belonging to the Jewish volunteer service Hatzola, causing around £1 million of damage. An Iran-linked group claimed responsibility (although no direct link to Tehran has been established).

In March 2024, Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for the London-based opposition channel Iran International, was stabbed outside his home in Wimbledon by a hit team who then drove straight to Heathrow and fled Britain within hours. 

The attackers were Romanian criminals hired as proxies; two were later extradited to Britain and jailed. The threats against the station became so grave that it was forced for a time to shut its London studios and broadcast from Washington.

Between 2022 and 2023, Britain was in the grip of a largely foiled assassination and kidnapping campaign of which most people remain unaware. MI5 and the Metropolitan Police revealed that they had disrupted at least 15 Iranian plots to kidnap or kill British nationals or UK residents whom Tehran regarded as enemies of the regime.

There have now been so many Iranian operations against us that we can trace the evolution of their methods almost in real time. Britain has become a testing ground on which Iran has honed the art of killing, spying and intimidating while keeping its hands supposedly clean.

For the Iranians, dispatching agents from Tehran has become passé. Instead, the IRGC and Iranian intelligence increasingly hire local criminals and other assorted scumbags to do their dirty work.

Counter-terrorism police are now investigating whether the alleged bomb plot is linked to Iran

It makes sense. Criminals are cheap and expendable. Using them makes an attack harder to trace and gives Tehran deniability. MI5 says Iranian state actors make ‘extensive use of criminals as proxies’, ranging from international drug traffickers to low-level thugs.

This is the new face of Iran’s shadow war against Britain.

And our response to all this can be summed up in one depressing image: Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband shaking hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at the United Nations in New York last week.

Labour punishes the Israelis for defending their country and extends its hand to the Iranians for attacking ours.

We have been lucky. Once again, the terror that our political class refuses to adequately confront has been foiled by the security services it refuses to adequately fund.

But don’t worry – I’m told that Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Defence Secretary Wes Streeting are being ‘regularly briefed’ on the situation. Fear is no doubt coursing through IRGC senior command as I write.

So, if we sigh with relief that the plot appears to have been foiled, our response must amount to more than a grateful exhalation – because, believe me, more Iranian attacks are coming.