Iran’s new military-led order may mean greater dangers abroad

Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, says the post-Ali Khamenei Islamic Republic is likely to become more operationally aggressive, with sleeper cells and lone-wolf attacks posing a growing threat to Tehran’s adversaries.

"Lone wolves are a bigger threat," Citrinowicz told Iran International, referring to the act of an individual committing a violent act alone without a direct order.

"You just need to create the atmosphere," Citrinowicz said. "It will lead to someone saying, I'm going to do something." 

Citrinowicz describes the Islamic Republic in 2026 as "Iranian Revolution 3.0" — its third iteration since 1979 — in which a military junta has taken control of the founding doctrine of clerical rule, Velayat-e Faqih, with the IRGC dominating all meaningful decisions.

It is a regime that has demonstrated, through the foreign fighters it brought in to suppress its own population during the January 2026 uprising, that it harbors sizable loyal support outside its borders. 

"The regime will try to present itself as a continuation of Ali Khamenei's regime," Citrinowicz said.

Yet the IRGC-dominated leadership still faces a limitation in its power, inheriting a government whose revolutionary appeal has long outlasted its domestic popularity. 

Iran International reported that around 800 members of Iraqi militia groups — including Kataib Hezbollah and Harakat al-Nujaba — entered Iran days before the January 2026 crackdown that killed tens of thousands of protesters.

Proxy Shia forces from Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan have also been reported inside Iran. 

The Pakistani contingent — the Zainabiyoun Brigade — is an armed wing rooted in Tehran's ideological network, drawn from South Asia's Shia communities. But one militia is only part of the picture.

Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, an associate professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, describes Lahore-based cleric Jawad Naqvi as running a sprawling and sophisticated Shia seminary operation in Lahore, Pakistan. 

The seminary produces Qom-trained scholars, high-quality social media content, and an explicit political model.

"He's really someone who says we have to implement the Iranian model in Pakistan," Fuchs told Iran International. Naqvi's political model draws inspiration from Hezbollah, Fuchs argues — a Shia minority that embraced Velayat-e Faqih and came to dominate Lebanon's political field.

"The vision and the boldness to simply claim that you could also dominate the state is definitely there," Fuchs said, though he cautioned the comparison has limits — Pakistan's Shia community has no history of armed resistance. 

"Iran's efforts to gain a following as the legitimate leader of the Shia (community) has paid off somewhat in South Asia," said Cliff Smith, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who visited Indian-administered Kashmir and documented Iranian influence on the ground.

"The idea of Iran is stronger outside its borders than it is inside." 

India, home to between 20 and 40 million Shia — the second-largest such population after Iran — has received less scrutiny than its neighbour. 

Smith observed during time spent in Kashmir that New Delhi had effectively tolerated Iranian influence among the Shia community, calculating it served as a useful counterweight to Sunni radicalism from Pakistan.

The wave of protests and unrest that was seen in India following Khamenei's killing has prompted a reassessment, according to Smith. 

"I had one of those people tell me, when they had seen the riots and demonstrations after Khamenei’s death, that I was right. We should have paid attention to this sooner," he said, recalling a contact at an Indian think tank. 

Abhinav Pandya of India's Usanas Foundation argues the blind spot runs deeper than Kashmir, as Iran's influence among Indian Muslims is not confined to Shia communities.

India is home to around 200 million Muslims — the world's third-largest — and Pandya argues the Indian security establishment has been too focused on the Sunni threat to register how deeply the Islamic Republic's influence has taken root among the country's Shia groups. 

"The biggest misunderstanding is that most of the jihadist problem comes from the Sunni Muslims, and the Shias — they don't need to bother about them, Shias are completely loyal," Pandya said.

"So far Shia Muslims have not majorly participated in any terrorist activity... But partly this understanding is problematic." 

For Citrinowicz, the killing of Khamenei —a figure seen as much as a religious leader as a political one — risks transforming Iran's conflict with the US and Israel into something far harder to contain. 

“The killing of him is potentially opening some sort of religious war that I think that we have to make sure it won't expand between the Shias and the state of Israel," he said.

Citrinowicz also warned of an increase in Iranian terror activity abroad. "While they have this kind of capabilities and shared communities all over the world, especially in places like India, definitely we'll see an uptick."