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American businesses in UK ‘at risk of Iranian terror’, as experts say regime will seek ‘package of revenge’ for airstrikes
24 June 2025, 10:37 | Updated: 24 June 2025, 12:34
Counter terrorism experts have warned Iran could be considering more hostile state activity in the UK, after its nuclear sites were bombed by Donald Trump at the weekend.
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The Iranian regime retaliated by firing missiles at a US military base in Qatar last night, but LBC has been told that will be likely be part of a ‘package of revenge’ which could include cyber-attacks or violence on UK soil, directed towards American banks and businesses.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis told MPs earlier this year that the number of state threat investigations led by MI5 had increased by 48% in the past year.
That includes more than 20 potentially lethal threats, linked to Iran, directed at people in the UK since 2022.
Colonel Philip Ingram, a former senior British military intelligence officer, told LBC that the security services will be on high alert following US involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
He said: “They will be very anxious and be carefully monitoring all the threats that they know of and carrying out as many activities to try and identify any new threats that there are to British interests across the Middle East and back here at home.
“Any American interest could be at risk and therefore I would expect those organisations to be taking further enhanced protection. Of course, where it's geographically closer to Iran, then the risk increases, but it'll still be there in international cities with large diaspora such as London, Paris, and Germany.
“Iran has to try and save face, and it can't do what it does to Israel and fire ballistic missiles at the United States. So it has to do something different, it’ll be considering a revenge package.
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“That could range from firing ballistic missiles at US bases in the Middle East or stimulating terror activity in different countries around the world. And it could use its proxies to try and cause further disruption to US and other international interests, like further disruption to international shipping in the Red Sea.”
On Sunday, business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said “it would be naive” to say the threat from Iran wouldn’t increase, adding “not a week goes by” without an Iranian cyber-attack on the UK’s critical national infrastructure.
In December 2023, a Chechen-born man was sentenced to three and a half years in prison after being found guilty of spying on dissident TV station Iran International’s West London HQ, as part of a plan by others to carry out a terror attack.
Four months later, Iranian presenter Pouria Zeraati was stabbed in the leg by three unknown assailants as he approached his car in Wimbledon, southwest London.
And just a few weeks ago, seven Iranian nationals were arrested, reportedly only hours before a suspected terror attack was set to be launched on British soil, against “a specific premises”, understood to have been the Israeli Embassy.
Experts say it’s unlikely that hostile activity from the state would turn towards targeting the general population of the UK, in the same way as Islamist extremists have in the past.
But they claim banks, businesses and infrastructure linked to the United States could become a target.
It comes as Sir Mark Rowley branded Palestine Action an "organised criminal extremist group" following the Home Secretary's intent to ban the group, branding it a terror organisation.
Pressed on whether he would similarly brand the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terror group worth banning, he insisted it was "a matter for government. I'm not going to express a view on that".
Speaking on the threat, Nick Aldworth, former National Counter terrorism coordinator, told LBC: “This is a political fight, not an ideological fight, so it isn't the same context as the violence that we’ve seen evolving from ideologically driven terrorism which tends to be focused on the civil population.
“Based on the warnings of MI5, though, that hostile activity is already here on our streets and I think that it's highly feasible that attacks will continue, to sow discord and chaos on our streets as part of a proxy war that's effectively going on across the world at the moment.
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“It starts at general criminality and thuggery, where we see established criminal actors in the UK perhaps doing something and they're not even necessarily aware that they're doing it on behalf of a hostile state.
“It's possible that we will see sabotage against infrastructure that perhaps presents a perceived risk to Iranian interests, and I think American businesses will almost certainly be stepping up their protective security measures as well as the US Embassy in the UK.”
The British government has refused to say whether it supported the US air strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites on Saturday.
And while American President Donald Trump claimed on social media that he had helped Israel and Iran to reach a ceasefire agreement overnight, Iran’s foreign minister denied a deal had been made.
Iranian state media has since said a ceasefire is underway though.
Labour backbenchers have reportedly joined calls for the IRGC branch of Iran’s military to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government.
The Conservatives and Reform have also said support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps should be banned.
But Dr Paul Stott, head of security and extremism at the think tank Policy Exchange, told LBC it may not be effective.
He said “Proscription tends to be a tactic that the UK uses, but there isn't a lot of legal action which follows. In recent years we've proscribed the political wings of Hamas, of Hezbollah, we've prescribed Hizb ut Tahrir, but the number of court cases which have followed is minimal.
“And so, there is a danger that prescribing the IRGC is just performative.”
Reacting to claims US involvement in strikes against Iran could fuel further state threats in the UK, Dr Stott said: “It's possible that the regime turns into a bit of a rabble, but what's characterised the regime since 1979 is its ability to not become a rabble, to keep itself together and to survive.
“If its first priority is survival, it would not be wise to carry out threats overseas which may unite the opposition against it even further.”
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
