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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—once known chiefly for orchestrating foreign insurgencies and exporting theocratic revolution—has rapidly evolved into one of the world’s most dangerous cyber actors. Today, it wages a hybrid war that fuses digital sabotage with ideological subversion, and the United Kingdom has become one of its prime targets.

No longer limited to shadowy operations in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq, the IRGC now extends its reach deep into the digital arteries of the UK. British officials, academic institutions, journalists, dissidents, and entire communities have been subject to a concerted and increasingly aggressive campaign of espionage, hacking, intimidation, and psychological warfare. Its foot soldiers are not only IRGC cyber units in Tehran, but a web of proxies—hacker collectives, “activist” NGOs, fake media outlets, and social media avatars—all designed to erode Britain’s defences from within.

In 2022, the head of MI5 publicly disclosed that Iran had orchestrated at least ten abduction or assassination plots in the UK within a single year, describing Iran’s activities as “the most sustained hostile threat” from any state besides Russia. Much of this threat stems from the IRGC, which controls Iran’s intelligence apparatus and deploys both online and offline operatives. That same year, IRGC-linked hackers breached British parliamentary emails, targeted MPs critical of the regime, and penetrated university systems conducting research on Iran’s influence operations.

But digital intrusion is only half the story. The IRGC also exports disinformation and extremism—particularly to Britain’s Arab and Muslim communities—through online indoctrination campaigns aimed at spreading Tehran’s revolutionary ethos. These are not isolated incidents but part of a strategic effort to radicalise, polarise, and ultimately mobilise British audiences in service of Iran’s geopolitical objectives.

Iran’s clerical regime is waging a sophisticated campaign to reshape its influence across the Muslim world – including in Britain – by weaponising the Palestinian cause as a Trojan horse. Tehran seeks to don the mantle of Islamic leadership in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), outflanking Sunni rivals (notably Saudi Arabia) by casting support for Palestine and fierce anti-Zionism as the ultimate litmus test of Islamic legitimacy. This research brief examines how the Islamic Republic exploits transnational Sunni Islamist currents – particularly the South Asian Deobandi movement – to galvanize Muslim opinion against Israel and the West, thereby pressuring Sunni governments into ideological submission. It explores historical and ideological intersections between Deobandism and Iran’s 1979 revolutionary thought, Tehran’s covert partnerships with Deobandi networks in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and even the UK, and uses the recent example of Pakistan’s Grand Mufti calling for jihad on Israel to illustrate Iran’s strategy of framing neutrality as betrayal of the Ummah (global Muslim community). The brief highlights the geopolitical threat this poses to Saudi Arabia’s custodianship of Mecca and Medina, arguing that Iran’s aim is to present itself as the rightful leader of the Islamic world by recasting the Palestinian struggle as a moral yardstick for Muslim rulers.