Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warn of shifting battlefield with Israel

Lindsay and Craig Foreman were recently moved to the Gharchak Women’s Prison and the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, added the source familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns.

The couple had been held by Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence for the past seven months.

According to the source, the couple were subjected to torture including sleep depravation, beating and threats of execution by security agents seeking to extract confessions but have maintained their innocence.

The couple, both in their 50s, entered Iran from Armenia during a motorcycle world tour. After visiting Tabriz, Tehran and Isfahan, they planned to travel to Kerman.

On January 4, 2025, they were arrested on their way to city of Kerman and charged with spying. Britain has rejected the charges and demanded their release.

The UK foreign office said the couple was receiving consular assistance in response to a request for comment by Iran International.

“We are deeply concerned by reports that two British nationals have been charged with espionage in Iran. We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities," it said in a statement.

“We are providing them with consular assistance and remain in close contact with their family members.”

Iran has long detained and convicted foreign nationals in a bid for to gain financial or political concessions from foreign powers.

Tehran has consistently denied that the detentions are politically motivated.

Iran’s parliament on Wednesday passed parts of a bill titled Support for Iranians Abroad that MPs say aims to help Tehran reengage with the diaspora.

Last week, President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iranians living in other countries should be able to return without fear.

His culture minister, Reza Salehi Amiri, then appeared on state TV to hammer the message home: “This land belongs to you, and we are rolling out the red carpet."

Yet skepticism runs deep.

Returnees—especially dual nationals—have often been detained, interrogated, or sentenced on vague charges such as propaganda against the system or acting against national security.

‘Almost none stayed long’

“From (President Mohammad) Khatami in the late 1990s to Pezeshkian now, everyone has tried to woo expat professionals and people with financial resources to invest back in Iran,” Kamran, a 56-year-old who runs a family business in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, told Iran International.

“I know a few who came back over the years, but almost none stayed long enough to invest.”

Kamran’s children live in Canada. He says he prefers they not return, even for short visits.

“They participated in every protest rally in Canada in recent years and have posted anti-government content online,” he explains. “That can get them into serious trouble. I won’t let them take any risks.”

Mitra, a housewife in Tehran, says her relatives avoid returning for the same reason.

“They meet their parents in countries like Turkey once or twice a year. It’s hard for their elderly parents, but they feel it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

New bill, old problems

There are an estimated 4 to 5 million Iranians living abroad—from Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to Australia, North America and nearly every country in Western Europe. Collectively, their wealth is believed to exceed one trillion dollars.

To tap into that potential, parliament is reviewing a bill titled Support for Iranians Abroad, proposing easier travel, expanded consular services, looser dual citizenship restrictions, and new academic and investment incentives.

“I don’t know what the government is thinking, asking diaspora Iranians to come back and invest. They must be fools to do so when neither their lives nor their money is safe,” said Mehdi, a 45-year-old artist in Tehran.

Other critics say the real obstacles are structural: deep corruption, cronyism and the dominance of security institutions over the economy.

“Diaspora Iranians don’t just listen to officials’ words—they watch their actions,” wrote former telecom minister Mohammad-Javad Azari-Jahromi on X. “Concrete reform of policies and procedures matters more than slogans.”

Social media activist Arash Ghaffari mocked the initiative given the country's ongoing water and electricity outages.

“The honorable President has invited Iranians abroad to return to their beloved homeland, overflowing with water and electricity in the summer, an abundance of gas in the winter, a land of stable prices, an economic paradise!” he posted on X.

On July 26, security forces raided Unit 4 of Ghezel Hesar prison in the town of Karaj, which houses political prisoners, to suppress detainees involved in a campaign against the death penalty.

Since the raid, families of about 20 prisoners have raised concerns about their whereabouts and filed petitions and requests for information.

A source familiar with the situation who declined to be named for security reasons told Iran International that the prisoners were beaten before being placed in solitary confinement. In protest, they launched a collective hunger strike.

The raid targeted approximately 25 prisoners who had participated in a campaign known as “No to Execution Tuesdays.”

The campaign began on January last year, when political prisoners in the women’s ward of Tehran’s Evin Prison started holding weekly hunger strikes every Tuesday to protest the rising number of executions.

Two men accused of belonging to the outlawed Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) opposition group were executed on July 26.

The executions of Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamlou and Mehdi Hassani were carried out in Evin Prison, where they had been held since their arrest. Both were convicted in September 2024 by a Tehran revolutionary court on a range of national security charges.

The inquiry alleged Tehran’s intelligence services have orchestrated dozens of operations to surveil, intimidate, or physically harm UK-based dissidents, journalists, and other perceived critics.

Security agencies have investigated more than 20 credible threats to life linked to Iran since 2022.

“Iran represents one of the highest kidnap and assassination state threats to the UK, with the Homeland Security Group describing the threat of physical attack on individuals in the UK as the greatest level of threat we currently face from Iran,” according to the report released this week.

The tactics include assassination plots, stalking, digital hacking, threats to family members, online abuse, and coordinated smear campaigns.

One key target has been Iran International, a London-based Persian-language broadcaster.

British interior minister Yvette Cooper said in May that Iran posed an "unacceptable threat" to domestic security after authorities charged three Iranian nationals under a national security law following a major counter-terrorism investigation.

In two separate operations in May, eight men including seven Iranians were arrested by the British counter-terrorism police.

Three of the Iranian nationals were later charged with offences under the National Security Act, accused of acting on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service and carried out surveillance targeting Iran International journalists.

Broader strategy of coercion

The report warns of a broader strategy of coercion extending beyond direct threats. Iranian-linked cultural and religious centers in the UK are allegedly being used to gather intelligence on the Iranian diaspora and promote the interests of Tehran.

Kasra Aarabi, director of research on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at US-based advocacy group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), points to what he calls a state-run infiltration network.

"Charities, mosques, academic institutions and cultural centers consistently carried out IRGC-linked activities on its premises,” including direct contact with some of “the most radical and extremist commanders of the IRGC.”

“The failure to address this issue is putting the UK’s national security and British lives at risk,” he told Iran International.

Journalists and women most targeted

Journalists covering Iran remain especially vulnerable, with Iran International and BBC Persian staff facing asset freezes, defamation campaigns, and threats to their families still living in Iran.

The Islamic Republic’s targeting of journalists reflects its fear of independent reporting, UK Director of Reporters Without Borders Fiona O’Brien told Iran International.

“If you're going to go to that length to try and shut something down, to try and silence people ... you must feel very threatened by that kind of information,” she said.

Female journalists reporting on protests and human rights violations have been targeted with gendered abuse, including threats of sexual violence.

The inquiry also highlights the regime’s evolving tactics, including AI-generated deepfake pornography, doctored images, and fabricated narratives used to discredit and silence.

"Impacts extend far beyond those directly targeted, creating a broader ‘chilling effect’ on entire communities and undermining fundamental rights such as freedom of expression, assembly, and association,” the committee said.

Intelligence resources stretched

The fear can be used as a method to overwhelm a country’s security apparatus.

Dr. Omid Shams, a UK-based human rights lawyer of Iranian origin, said the Islamic Republic has shifted from high-level, sophisticated operations to more chaotic, diffuse strategies that are harder for security agencies to detect.

Rather than relying solely on trained agents, Tehran increasingly uses local criminal gangs and petty criminals to carry out lower-level attacks.

“The goal,” Shams said, “is to stretch intelligence resources so thin that authorities are forced to either limit dissidents’ activities or negotiate indirectly with Iran to reduce pressure.”

UK policy still catching up

Despite the scope of the threat, the UK government has yet to formally define transnational repression in law or develop a strategy for addressing it, according to the committee, which urged the government to create a legal definition, train police, support victims, and systematically track these incidents.

Iran — alongside Russia — has been placed under the “enhanced tier” of the UK’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, requiring those acting on Tehran’s behalf to declare their activities. The report also calls for coordinated international pressure through the United Nations and INTERPOL.

Abdolreza Davari, a former adviser to Iran's minister of interior and a former deputy chief of the government's official news agency, is known for his rightwing, provocative commentary on social media.

In September 2024, he questioned Sinwar's motives to mastermind October 7 in a post on X.

“Yahya Sinwar is fluent in Hebrew and served as the liaison between prisoners and Israeli authorities during his imprisonment in Israel," Davari wrote.

"Sinwar is the commander of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which he launched without informing or coordinating with Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and his costly actions raise a big question mark about him.”

He later deleted the post but other users joined the discussion and suggested the slain Hamas commander was an Israeli agent.

Davari was sentenced to six months in jail, a fine, confiscation of his smart phone and a ban on social media activity, Jahan News reported.

The case is currently under appeal, while Davari is also being prosecuted for other controversial remarks made against Fereydoun Abbasi, former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), who was killed during an Israeli airstrike on June 13.

On June 14, Davari alleged Abbasi might have staged a terror attack on himself in 2009 to raise his profile and eventually become head of the AEOI.

The case is ongoing, Jahan News reported.