Western Preparedness Against Regime Influence
Denmark experienced a striking example of the regime’s reach in 2018. A major police operation, which effectively sealed off the island of Zealand, foiled plans to assassinate a member of an Iranian separatist group in Ringsted. A regime loyalist was later convicted of espionage and involvement in the plot.
In 2024, Sweden’s security service, Säpo, revealed that the Iranian regime had recruited Swedish criminals to carry out attacks against Iranian dissidents. When Iranian journalist Mehran Abasian was placed on a death list in Iran, he was forced into hiding under Säpo protection.
The threat in the West is increasing. On 31 July 2025, fourteen Western countries issued a joint statement condemning the Iranian intelligence service’s attempts to “kill, kidnap and harass individuals in Europe and North America — a clear violation of our sovereignty.” The statement noted that the intelligence service is increasingly collaborating with international criminal networks to target journalists, dissidents, Jewish citizens, and current and former officials. The countries pledged to strengthen cooperation to counter such activities.
On 16 October 2025, the head of the British domestic intelligence service MI5, Ken McCallum, stated that the agency had intensified its efforts to counter Iranian-backed plots in the United Kingdom. Within a single year, MI5 had disrupted more than twenty potentially lethal attacks.
Since the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on 28 February 2026, the threat has escalated further. Several Jewish institutions in Europe have been targeted. Explosions have struck a synagogue in Liège on 9 March, another in Rotterdam on 13 March, and a Jewish school in Amsterdam on 14 March. On 23 March, four ambulances belonging to the Jewish emergency service Hatzola were set on fire in London, near the Machzike Hadath synagogue in Golders Green.
A previously unknown group, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI), which expresses sympathy for the Iranian regime, has claimed responsibility for these attacks.
France: A Case Study in Infiltration
On 29 October 2025, the think tank France2050 published a report on the Iranian regime’s infiltration of France. The report was edited by Middle East expert Emmanuel Razavi and journalist Jean-Marie Montali.
According to Razavi and Montali, the mullahs have, since the 1979 revolution, built a network of embassies through which their intelligence services can operate. In the 1980s, they recruited students from far-left circles. In France, they organised conferences within communist academic environments. With the establishment of the far-left party La France Insoumise in 2016, the regime gained further influence.
The regime has also maintained links to the terrorist organisation Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and has used affiliated actors, together with the Muslim Brotherhood and far-left networks, to promote the Palestinian cause in France. Since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, these networks have sought to pressure France into pushing Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza and Lebanon.
A Heightened Terror Threat in France
Following the escalation in February 2026, France has strengthened its national security alert system, Vigipirate, which has been in operation for the past two years. Measures now include increased protection for Iranian dissidents, Jewish communities, and Israeli and American facilities.
Authorities are monitoring not only agents of the Iranian intelligence services, but also groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as criminal networks that can be recruited to carry out attacks.
These criminal actors are often drawn from drug networks or Algerian criminal groups in France. While they are cheaper to deploy, they are less effective than operations carried out directly by Iran’s Al-Quds forces.
Threats Against Iranian Exiles
Iranian exile Mona Jafarian warns of Islamism’s growing influence in France and now requires police protection:
“Today, anyone in the West who criticises Islamism needs protection.”
She has been under protection for two years and, since mid-February 2026, has received numerous threats, including death threats — often originating from Hezbollah-linked individuals in Lebanon. On one occasion, she received a phone call from Iran in which a man attempted to intimidate her into silence:
“Do you want me to send you pictures of your children? Right now?”
In another message, she was told:
“Your name is on a wanted list in Iran (…) We are in Paris. We know where you live. We will come and get you soon.”
Emmanuel Razavi has also been under police protection since 3 March 2026 following death threats from Iranian intelligence. Anonymous messages claim knowledge of his movements and of the whereabouts of his contacts in Iran. Individuals linked to the Revolutionary Guard have reportedly threatened to abduct him, take him to Iran, and hang him.
Journalist and producer Nazila Golestan produced a documentary on Ali Khamenei in 2017. The regime subsequently targeted her family in Iran, forcing her to sever contact for their safety. In France, her home was vandalised, and in mid-February 2026 she was assaulted in the metro.
French judo champion Teddy Riner argued in March 2025 that female athletes in France should be allowed to wear headscarves if they wish. Iranian exile boxer Mahyar Monshipour strongly disagreed, arguing that Riner fails to understand the political significance of the headscarf. He has since faced harassment, including the circulation of his home addresses on social media, and now takes security precautions when moving about.
Silence and Contradictions on the Left
The death of the Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022 sparked mass protests under the شعار “Woman. Life. Freedom.” In France, Mona Jafarian helped found the group Femme Azadi (“azadi” meaning “freedom” in Farsi), which seeks to raise awareness of the regime’s oppression.
She expresses deep frustration at the lack of solidarity from French feminists:
“The feminists have turned their backs on us. They never came. It is unbelievable.”
Jafarian sees parallels between today’s alliances between segments of the far left and Islamist actors and the dynamics surrounding the Iranian revolution of 1979:
“I no longer recognise France, and it pains me deeply. I wish I could open people’s eyes: you do not understand what is happening. A new form of ideological conformity — almost a kind of fascism of ‘right opinions’ — is emerging.”
Even the 7 October attack on Israel, she notes, did not change this pattern of denial.
Franco-Iranian human rights advocate Hilda Dehghani-Schmit similarly criticises Western media and activists for ignoring the suffering and struggle of the Iranian people. She questions why outrage was so muted following the October 2023 attacks, and why self-described feminists defend the right to wear the headscarf while failing to support Iranian women’s fight for freedom.
According to her, the regime expands its influence in France through cultural associations and academic, religious and political networks — often under the banner of “dialogue” or “combating Islamophobia.” Critics of the regime are frequently dismissed as advancing imperialist or far-right agendas.
Misreading Iran — Then and Now
Emmanuel Razavi and Jean-Marie Montali have recently published the book Paris–Téhéran, le grand dévoilement. In it, they describe how poorly informed French intellectuals and left-wing journalists were during the Iranian revolution of 1979. Had they read and understood the writings of Ruhollah Khomeini, they would have recognised the emergence of a violent Islamist dictatorship in which, among other things, homosexuals would be executed.
This blindness persisted for decades, accompanied by a refusal to acknowledge that those perceived as “oppressed” Islamists could become oppressors.
Razavi argues that the same blindness persists today. The regime’s narratives are often repeated uncritically. The Iranian opposition is marginalised, and Reza Pahlavi is dismissed as a Western puppet. It is claimed that he lacks a programme and enjoys no support in Iran — that he is merely the product of diaspora fantasies. Others warn that the country would collapse into chaos if the regime were to fall.
According to Razavi, none of this is accurate. He points to a 2024 study by the research institute Gamaan, which found that 89% of Iranians living in Iran support democracy, and that 31% support Reza Pahlavi. Razavi has also spoken with leaders of several ethnic movements, all of whom express a willingness to coordinate efforts toward regime change and the reconstruction of Iran.
