Attempts to pull off a 9/11-type attack on Israel and stage a drone attack against a strategic U.S. air base in the U.K. took place within days of each other last week. U.S. intelligence agencies believe that the IRGC is activating terrorist sleeper cells for major international operations to disrupt U.S. alliances and influence the U.S. midterm elections through a secretive unit based in Yemen.
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On September 27, five British nationals of Middle Eastern origin were caught in the process of placing three vans outside the air base in Fairford, England, from where U.S. bombers take off to strike Iran. The IRGC has publicly pinpointed the installation as a “legitimate target” for retaliatory attacks. A sixth suspect identified as a British Iranian dual national was subsequently arrested in London. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said that “there are strong indications of Iranian involvement” in the abortive plot.
On September 30, an airliner flying a regular route between the United Arab Emirates and Israel was hijacked by its co-pilot later described by authorities as a “radicalized” Islamic extremist who used an onboard axe to stab the pilot and take control of the aircraft before being wrestled down by passengers. Israeli intelligence analysts believe that he intended to crash the airliner with over 100 mostly Israeli passengers into Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
A terrorist strategy differs from a military one in that its objectives are essentially political. Ballistic missiles do damage, but a mass casualty event through the deliberate crash of a UAE airliner could irreparably damage key relations being formed between Israel and the Arab Gulf kingdoms. About a thousand Israeli military personnel are operating in the UAE to set up and manage air defenses modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome system to protect the Emirates and the Hormuz Strait.
Drones exploding at the U.S. air base in Fairford could similarly fray relations between the U.S. and the U.K., already strained by opposition from members of the ruling Labour Party to the use of British bases to strike Iran. President Trump has said that he plans to renew an intensified air campaign following the U.S. midterm elections. Coming on the run-up to the vote, a major terror attack on Fairford could have a devastating impact on the electoral chances of his Republican Party.
The U.S. Air Force has pulled out its B-1 bombers from the British base following what was described as “second scare” on Monday, complicating plans for strategic strikes on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities in the coming weeks or months.
Open differences between U.S. and U.K. authorities over the release of the Fairford terror suspects on police bail may have further influenced the decision to move the B-1s. Both Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed dismay over the releases, which U.K. police counterterrorism chief Laurence Taylor called an “investigative decision and one which is grounded in experience and strategy.”
The terrorist masterminds running Iran must be praising Allah. Their secret weapon to counter the U.S. and its allies as Iran’s economy gets decimated and its military defanged by President Trump is meeting with at least partial success. What ballistic missiles failed to do at the start of the war may now be achieved by locally recruited fanatics with little training directed remotely by the IRGC’s command cell Unit 840, which has managed sleeper networks traced to previous attacks in Europe.
IRGC chief Ahmed Vahidi has run international terrorist operations for decades. He headed the IRGC’s clandestine branch, Quds force, directing Hezbollah truck bombings against the Israeli embassy and the main synagogue in Argentina during the 1990s, which killed over 100 people.
Quds may now be relying on lower-key sleeper cells spreading throughout Europe through weaponized migration from Islamic countries penetrated by Iran.
Former British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that more than 20 Hezbollah attempts have been preempted in the U.K. over recent years. But Hezbollah is currently under devastating pressure from Israel, which is destroying its bases in Lebanon and uncovering information on the identity and movement of its operatives.
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Quds must now rely on selective recruitments of individuals already embedded in local communities with no previous terrorist record or links to a known group who can remain easily hidden in Europe’s growing and unassimilated Islamic populations. They are signaled to act by IRGC handlers “using secure non-internet transmission or coded messages which cannot be traced,” according to intelligence sources.
The group allegedly preparing the truck bombs in Fairford had been living in the town neighboring the base for months. The subsequently arrested U.K.-Iranian dual national is suspected to have acted as their IRGC contact.
Investigations into the UAE airline hijacking are even more complex. President Trump said Monday that the FlyDubai copilot who tried commandeering his jet against Israel, “appears to be linked to Iran,” based on high-level intelligence gathered from the UAE, where the kamikaze pilot, Hammam Al-Hammami, is now in prison.
Initial checks indicate that he could be part of a sophisticated sleeper network with deep-cover agents operating inside airlines. Al-Hammami previously worked for an air company in the neighboring state of Oman, which had barred him from flying over security concerns about his radical Islamic leanings, grounding him in administrative posts.
A former Venezuelan spy chief who liaised closely with the intelligence services of Cuba and Iran told me that they operate deep-cover agents in all key airlines, regularly facilitating access to such information as passenger manifests. A low-cost air start-up in the UAE operating regular flights to Israel would be a prime target for an IRGC penetration effort, which could develop assets influencing personnel decisions steering Al-Hammami into a piloting job.
IRGC operates through various Islamic terror networks. Contrary to widely accepted assumptions promoted by some analysts, Iran’s intelligence services have long-standing connections with Al Qaeda, which even has a base in Tehran, according to reports recently released by the Pentagon.
The 9/11 investigative commission reported among its findings that Iranian agents facilitated the international travel of some of the hijackers and kept close tabs on the operation. Agents based out of Venezuela may have assisted in supporting the group, a former high-level Venezuelan security official has told The American Spectator.
Media experts who take an academic approach to analyzing terrorism, such as CNN’s Peter Bergen, promote the idea that religious differences between Al Qaeda, which is Sunni, and the Iranian regime, which is Shia, prevent them from working together. But a former U.S. intelligence officer calls it “disinformed nonsense.”
“If the two can to get together for a major blow against the U.S., arguments about the holy significance of some twelfth-century Imam is not going to stop them.”
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