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Efrat Sopher

The Khalife sentencing: When will the UK take Iran’s domestic threat seriously?

As a British-Israeli of Iranian descent and outspoken critic of Tehran, I live in fear of reprisals by the IRGC and its proxies
Daniel Khalife (undated police photo);
Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb delivering summary and sentence in the Khalife case, Feb. 3, 2025 (Screenshot)
Daniel Khalife (undated police photo); Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb delivering summary and sentence in the Khalife case, Feb. 3, 2025 (Screenshot)

Daniel Khalife has been sentenced to 14 years after being found guilty of spying for Iran in November 2024. Khalife was also convicted of committing an act prejudicial to the safety or interests of the state, while also eliciting information about members of the armed forces. The former British Army soldier had effectively recruited himself as an agent for Iran, proactively identifying and contacting a sanctioned Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked individual who then transferred him to what was described as an “English-speaking handler” in 2019.

Khalife’s defense hinged on his claim that he was simply motivated by a desire to serve the UK’s intelligence agencies and was acting as an unsanctioned double agent, only providing his handlers in Tehran with what he viewed as insignificant information. He forged documents and his fictional reports recklessly endangered Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian national imprisoned at the time in Iran on (dubious?) (bogus / trumped up?) spying charges. Khalife even contacted the Security Service twice to offer them his services before they reported him to the police, leading to his first arrest in January 2022. Khalife displayed such incompetence that even his own barrister likened his activities to those of “Scooby Doo” rather than 007.

Yet, these revelations are of secondary importance to what the Khalife trial shows about Iran, and unquestionably reinforce how Tehran is a major, but surprisingly overlooked threat to British national security. Iran has spent years dedicating significant resources to subverting, radicalizing, and attempting acts of terrorism against British interests both domestically and internationally. This nefarious influence can no longer be ignored, and significant action from His Majesty’s Government is long overdue. While attention has rightly been directed towards Russia and China, we must also wake up to the Iranian threat and treat it with the seriousness it deserves. The recently concluded trial signaled Iran’s intentions towards the UK, despite Khalife’s naivety and incompetence.

When given the chance to infiltrate the UK’s armed forces, Tehran seized the opportunity. During his attempted espionage, Khalife collected the names of United Kingdom Special Forces operators, asked his handlers what regiments they were particularly interested in, and took a series of screenshots of systems marked “Secret,” including a password record sheet. Interestingly, an expert report for the defense from Dr. Frank Ledwidge, a senior lecturer in War Studies and former naval intelligence officer, argues that any information Khalife provided could only have been of “limited utility to an enemy state” due to its outdated and publicly available nature. Dr. Ledwidge also noted that even the list of special forces operators would not be of use because “the primary targets of Iranians are dissidents and Israelis.”

I find Dr. Ledwidge’s comments to the court nothing short of chilling. As a British-Israeli of Iranian descent in the UK and outspoken critic of the regime in Tehran, I, along with many friends, live in fear of reprisals by the IRGC and its proxies. In February 2023 it was revealed that MI5 and the Home Office police had foiled 15 plots by Iran to either kidnap or kill British or UK-based individuals it considers “enemies of the regime.” This number has since risen to twenty, and in December 2023 Magomed-Husejn Dovtaev was jailed for attempting to collect information useful for terrorism after being caught surveilling Iran International’s Chiswick studios. In March 2024, the Iran International journalist, Pouria Zeraati, was stabbed by two men outside his London home and only narrowly survived. He has now fled to Israel, citing the government’s failure to proscribe the IRGC as a key factor behind his decision.

In May 2024, four people were injured after “clashes” at a memorial ceremony being held for the Iranian President in Wembley after his death in a helicopter crash. These “clashes” were in fact anti-regime protestors being assaulted by supporters of the Islamic Republic. Ellie Borhan, one of those assaulted, was injured so badly she was hospitalized. Her phone was lost in the scuffle and later turned on in the Iranian Embassy at Princes Gate in Kensington. In September 2024, GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre also warned that hackers working on behalf of the IRGC were targeting “individuals with a nexus to Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs, such as current and former senior government officials, senior think tank personnel, journalists, activists and lobbyists” as part of a phishing campaign.

In recent months, Israel has also arrested and charged dozens of alleged Iranian agents accused of subversion, tracking nuclear scientists, taking photos of Mossad’s headquarters, providing maps of the Golani Brigade’s training base where over 60 were injured and four killed in a drone strike in October, and attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister or Defense Minister. It is also alleged that members of one ring were debriefed on missile impacts after April 2024’s unprecedented direct Iranian attack on Israel to improve the accuracy on future targeting. The majority of these agents were Jewish Israelis, many from Azerbaijan, which sits on Iran’s northern border. It is believed that Iranian intelligence is operating inside Azerbaijan and targeting its Jewish community, identifying and then recruiting potential agents willing to spy on Israel.

Iran’s activities extend to the US as well. In September, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated and sanctioned seven individuals as part of a coordinated US government response to Iran’s operations that sought to influence or interfere in the 2024 and 2020 presidential elections. In November, the Department of Justice “charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump.” In 2019, an indictment against Monica Witt was made six years after her defection to Iran. A former US Air Force counterintelligence specialist and defense contractor, she was also closely linked with a prominent US-born Press TV journalist, Marzieh Hashemi.

These events underscore that we cannot afford to maintain the status quo on Iran and the threats it poses to UK national security. Despite the well-intentioned efforts of the FCDO and Treasury, their sanctions have had little deterring effect on Tehran which now appears ever more brazen. Proscription of the IRGC is long overdue and would be a welcome starting point. Additionally, the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) should be banned given its role in assassinating and abducting regime opponents around the world. The UK government must deliver on its manifesto pledge “to take the approach used for dealing with non-state terrorism and adapt it to deal with statebased domestic security threats.” Now is not the time to slumber or sleep and where the Conservatives fell short on national security, Labour can succeed by taking meaningful attempts to safeguard the UK and the international community against Iran’s threats.

About the Author
Dr. Efrat Sopher is Chair of the Board of Advisors at the Ezri Center for Iran and Gulf States Research at Haifa University.