Children gather in a school courtyard for their morning assembly. The sun beams on their young faces, as they form orderly rows. They are resplendent in their crisp, white uniforms. That’s where their innocence ends. It was stripped from them by Shia extremists. ‘We wait for you, Oh Imam, come back to us again,’ the children bellow in unison, ‘do not see me as too young, for you I will rise up and remain standing tall.’
The scene I am describing does not take place in Tehran. It takes place in North London. The song being sung is unlike ordinary school songs heard anywhere else in the UK. The lyrics refer to the Imam Mahdi, or the Twelfth Imam, a messianic figure in Shia doctrine. These school children are singing for his return.
Young children are full of life. Yet, in this North London school, run by Shia disciples who revere Iran’s Supreme Leader, these children exalt death. Brainwashed by zealots, the students continue to chant. They repeat a refrain. ‘Do not see me as too young,’ they cry, ‘from the 313 you’ll see I’ll answer the call.’ The Tony Blair Institute’s Kasra Aarabi wrote ‘[These] children [are] declaring their preparedness to join the so-called 313 special fighters of the Twelfth Imam and join the apocalyptic wars that will follow the Twelfth Imam’s return to Earth – and in so doing, expressing a desire to become “martyrs”.’
Let that sink in for a moment. Young children in the UK are yearning to become martyrs.
This is what the Islamic Republic of Iran has exported to British shores. Indeed, the Islamic Republic is not just Israel’s or the United States’ problem. It is the UK’s problem, too.
Radicalising children is the tip of the theocratic iceberg. The clerical regime has gone to great lengths to undermine and subvert British society. And, while the world watches on as chaos once again descends upon the Middle East, British policymakers should focus their minds on exorcising the Iranian threat to the UK.
The authorities should begin by dismantling the Iranian network operating on British soil. Including cultural centres and Islamic schools, such as the Islamic Centre of England, located in Kilburn, and the Islamic College of London, located on Willesden High Road. Regime agents operate in plain sight through these institutions, radicalising children and glorifying the theocratic mullahs of Tehran.
According to a report by the Jewish Chronicle, The Islamic Centre of England’s director, Seyed Moosavi, is directly connected to the Iranian regime. In fact, Moosavi is regarded as the Supreme Leader’s representative in the United Kingdom. ‘Written into the Islamic Centre of England’s constitution,’ stated the Jewish Chronicle, ‘[the organisation’s] director will always also be Khamenei’s personal representative in Britain.’ Moosavi held vigils for designated terrorists such as Qassem Soleimani, and described the United States – Britain’s closest ally – as the ‘most wicked members of the human race.’
The Islamic Centre of England serves as a critical node in the Iran’s network, facilitating direct engagement between Iranian diplomats and expatriates. At the centre, Iranian officials deliver speeches, and historical events, such as the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, are commemorated.
Another institution that has links to the Islamic Centre of England is the Islamic College of London. The college has ties to the infamous Al-Mustafa university in Tehran: an institution sanctioned by the US government for recruiting and radicalising non-Iranian Shia Muslims to the regime’s cause, which is to export the Islamic revolution by sowing chaos and disorder in the West. ‘The fact that there appears to be an Al Mustafa affiliate on British soil,’ observed Aarabi, ‘is very worrying.’
Whereas the likes of the Islamic Centre of England run an insidious covert operation, the IRGC – the military and intelligence structure under the direct command of the Ayatollah Khamenei – is implicated in violent terrorist activities in the UK.
According to MI5, it has a history of assassination attempts and planned terror attacks. ‘Since January 2022, with police partners, we have responded to twenty Iran-backed plots presenting potentially lethal threats to British citizens and UK residents,’ stated MI5 Director General Ken McCallum in October 2024. In November 2022, the regime deployed IRGC assets to the UK to murder British-Iranian journalists from the Iran International news channel, a channel run by regime dissidents formerly based in London.
The plot was concocted by the IRGC’s Unit 840, which carries out overseas assassinations. The mastermind of the plot was IRGC commander Mohammed Reza Ansari. Ansari was also implicated in a plot to assassinate former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The plot to kill the UK-based journalists was thankfully foiled by MI5, but the regime has yet to be fully held accountable for the assassination attempt. This is only one of countless examples of the malign impact Iran has had in the UK.
In May 2025, five Iranian men were arrested in a counter-terrorism operation in several cities across the country. They were charged with espionage and planning to target UK-based journalists. What these arrests demonstrate is that the Iranian terror threat to the UK is clear, it is present, and it is active. It may also be intensifying.
Failing to completely eradicate the domestic Iranian threat could have severe national security consequences. As the regime becomes increasingly desperate, it could decide to increase its terrorist activities abroad. Desperation leads to greater risk taking. The conflict in the Middle East will not stay in the Middle East. Therefore, the threat of terrorist attacks by the IRGC on UK targets, such as synagogues, government assets and densely populated public places, could soon multiply.
On June 19, former MI6 chief, Sir John Sawers, issued a dire warning to the British public. Speaking on Channel 4 News, he said ‘we know the Iranians have sent their operatives to this country to attack and kill Iranian oppositionists who are based here. The same capability can be used for terrorist action against other people and then there’s a possibility of blowback, especially if the UK is involved.’ Indeed, the regime has threatened punitive action against the United Kingdom if it were perceived to be aiding the Israelis in their military campaign against Iran. Neutralising Iran’s network in the United Kingdom is a critical preventative step in mitigating against the risk of an Iranian terror attack on British targets.
Counter-terrorism efforts are simply no longer enough, in order to destroy Iran’s UK-based terror network. As the regime leadership continues to be decimated, and its military capabilities degraded, the Iran’s mullahs now face an existential fight. Consequently, the UK national security establishment is presented with an opportunity to proactively diffuse the threat on British soil. It is, after all, long overdue, as the threat dates back to at least 1989, when the regime reprehensibly issued a fatwa, or bounty, on the life of British novelist Salman Rushdie.
The UK government’s response to the Rushdie fatwa was supine, back then. The UK government’s response to the Iranian threat today must be different. The UK national security establishment must act with conviction, purpose, and, yes, ruthlessness. Indeed, it must show the same purposeful ruthlessness Israel is showing in its campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah, and now the murderous mullahs.
The regime in Tehran is facing a reckoning. Given its worship of martyrdom, and its visceral hatred for what the United Kingdom and the free world stands for, it is unlikely to give up without a fight. It cannot win a conventional military struggle with Israel in the Middle East, this is clear. Even more so now that joint US-Israeli strikes appear to have severely depleted Iran’s warfighting capabilities. However, the regime can cause devastating damage to the UK, by mobilising its domestic terror network in order to conduct asymmetric attacks. The UK national security establishment cannot allow this to happen.
The Israeli Defence Forces dubbed its military operation in Iran as Operation Rising Lion. It’s now the UK’s turn to invoke the spirit of a rising lion and conduct its own operations to root out and destroy the nefarious network of IRGC operatives on British soil. There will never be a more opportune time to do so, as the beleaguered regime faces an insurmountable struggle in the Middle East. Most crucially, taking out the UK-based Iranian threat could save future generations from the radicalising scourge of Tehran’s theocratic tyrants.
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