“Iran has a high appetite for risk when conducting offensive activity and its intelligence services are ferociously well-resourced with significant areas of asymmetric strength.”
He added: “Iran is there across the full spectrum of all the kinds of threats we have to be concerned with.”
The committee accuses the government of focusing on “crisis management” and “fire-fighting” with Iran, as well as on its nuclear programme, at the expense of other threats.
It says the national security threat from Iran requires more resourcing and a longer-term approach.
“Whilst Iran’s activity appears to be less strategic and on a smaller scale than Russia and China, Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security, which should not be underestimated: it is persistent and – crucially – unpredictable.”
On the physical threat to people living in the UK, the committee said it has significantly increased in pace and in number since the start of 2022.
It is focused at dissidents and other opponents of the Iranian regime, it said, adding there is also an increased threat “against Jewish and Israeli interests in the UK”.
There have been at least 15 attempts at murder or kidnap against British nationals or UK-based individuals since the beginning of 2022, the report found.
“The Homeland Security Group told us that the threat of physical attack on individuals in the UK is now ‘the greatest level of threat we currently face from Iran’, and comparable with the threat posed by Russia.”
But, the committee said, Iran does not view attacks on dissident, Jewish and Israeli targets in the UK as attacks on the UK. The report continues: “It rather sees the UK as collateral in its handling of internal matters – i.e. removing perceived enemies of the regime – on UK soil”.
