Maryam Rajavi: Domestic repression and the export of terrorism, warmongering, and the pursuit of nuclear weapons are pillars of this regime’s survival
WASHINGTON, DC — October 13, 2026 — Britain has publicly attributed a suspected plot involving a military facility to the Iranian regime, as British security authorities warn that Tehran is pursuing increasingly ambitious operations abroad.
UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday that the suspected September 27 plot was “highly likely” coordinated in Iran and “almost certainly” directed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
British internal security authorities have also assessed that Tehran-linked networks are moving toward more consequential targets, including sensitive and strategic facilities. The assessment points to a broader evolution in the regime’s overseas operations, increasingly involving proxies, hired operatives, and criminal networks.
U.S. Joins International Condemnation of Tehran’s Overseas Operations
The United States joined Britain and 27 other governments on October 12 in a joint condemnation of the Iranian regime’s overseas activities, including lethal plotting, arson, sabotage, cyberattacks, and other hybrid operations.
The statement said the September 27 incident demonstrated the IRGC’s continued willingness to project hostile activity beyond Iran through covert networks and proxy actors. It also cited threats against Iranian dissidents, journalists, Jewish communities, and Western interests.
RAF Fairford has hosted U.S. strategic bombers and supported American military operations. Reuters reported that the security threat prompted the United States to relocate bomber aircraft from the base.
Britain also announced new sanctions against Iranian operatives connected to Tehran’s overseas activities. The sanctioned individuals included Ruhollah Bazghandi, an IRGC counterintelligence official, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, whom British authorities described as a facilitator for the Zindashti criminal network.
The Zindashti network has been linked to plots targeting Iranian dissidents abroad.
These developments reinforce a pattern previously documented by the National Council of Resistance of Iran-U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US). In an August 2025 disclosure on Tehran’s overseas terror network, NCRI-US detailed an operational structure involving the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC Intelligence Organization, and the IRGC Quds Force.
The disclosure also documented Tehran’s increasing reliance on foreign mercenaries, organized criminal groups, and deniable intermediaries to carry out operations abroad.
A Longstanding State Policy Adapts to New Methods
Tehran’s use of overseas terrorism predates its current reliance on criminal proxies.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Iranian dissidents, including senior officials of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), were targeted in assassination operations across Europe. Iranian operatives worked alongside recruited agents and mercenaries, while Tehran’s diplomatic missions repeatedly emerged as important logistical and operational hubs.
NCRI-US has extensively documented this history in its book Iran’s Emissaries of Terror, which examines the role of Iranian embassies, intelligence personnel, and diplomatic infrastructure in surveillance, recruitment, planning, and terrorist operations abroad.
One of the most consequential examples came in 2018.
Assadollah Assadi, a senior Iranian intelligence operative serving as a diplomat at Tehran’s embassy in Vienna, masterminded an elaborate bomb plot targeting the Iranian Resistance’s Free Iran gathering near Paris.
The planned attack targeted a gathering attended by Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, senior NCRI and MEK officials, and hundreds of political and other dignitaries from the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.
European authorities disrupted the plot before the explosive device could be detonated.
The latest British findings suggest that Tehran’s overseas apparatus has not diminished. Instead, its operational methods have broadened—from intelligence officers and diplomatic cover to criminal networks, proxies, and increasingly ambitious targets.
Rajavi: Terrorism Remains a Pillar of Regime Survival
Responding to the latest British findings, Maryam Rajavi said the developments reaffirm what the Iranian Resistance has warned for years.
“Domestic repression and the export of terrorism, warmongering, and the pursuit of nuclear weapons are pillars of this regime’s survival, which it is unwilling and unable to abandon. It is time for the world to recognize the Iranian people’s legitimate demand for regime change and their just resistance for freedom and a democratic republic,” Rajavi said in an October 13 statement.
For Washington and its European allies, the issue increasingly extends beyond disrupting individual plots. It also raises the question of how to confront the state institutions, intelligence structures, diplomatic networks, and criminal intermediaries that organize, finance, and facilitate them. Ultimately, however, as Maryam Rajavi has argued, because terrorism is a pillar of the regime’s survival, ending the rule of the theocracy is necessary to eliminate the threat at its source.
About the Iranian Resistance
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is a coalition advocating a democratic, secular republic in Iran. Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s President-elect for the transitional period, has outlined a Ten-Point Plan for a future democratic Iran. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is the NCRI’s principal organized movement.