The conviction of 19-year-old Norwegian Johannes Kongsnes Natland for conspiring to carry out a contract killing in Britain is far more than another criminal case. It is the latest warning that the Iranian regime has brought its campaign of state-sponsored terrorism onto Britain's streets. For decades, Tehran relied upon the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) to orchestrate assassinations and terrorist attacks through proxy organizations and covert networks.
Today, that strategy has evolved. Rather than deploying its own operatives, Tehran increasingly recruits organized crime gangs, drug cartels and vulnerable young men willing to kill for money. Outsourcing violence gives the regime plausible deniability while extending its reach across Europe. The Natland case illustrates this perfectly. Prosecutors established that the teenager traveled from Stavanger to Britain, where he was instructed to collect firearms and ammunition in Huddersfield. He had been recruited by Sweden's notorious Foxtrot criminal network, already sanctioned by the British Government because of its links to the Iranian regime and attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets across Europe. Behind the gangsters and middlemen lay the familiar hand of Tehran.
This outsourced terrorism forms part of a broader strategy of coercion. Alongside assassination plots, the clerical regime has repeatedly used hostage-taking and the arbitrary detention of dual nationals and foreign citizens as diplomatic leverage, seeking prisoner exchanges and political concessions from Western governments. Too often, convicted Iranian terrorists have been returned to Tehran in exchange for innocent hostages, reinforcing the regime's belief that blackmail works and encouraging further aggression.
Britain would be mistaken to view Natland's case as an isolated incident. It belongs to a growing catalogue of Iranian-sponsored operations across Europe. Only three years ago, former European Parliament Vice President Alejo Vidal-Quadras narrowly escaped assassination outside his Madrid home. A gunman shot him in the face at point-blank range before fleeing. Spanish investigators soon focused on a criminal network with links back to Tehran. Vidal-Quadras had spent decades supporting the Iranian democratic opposition and defending the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). His attempted murder bore all the hallmarks of a regime determined to silence one of its most effective critics.
The same pattern emerged in France during one of Europe's most serious terrorist conspiracies. In 2018, Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi personally transported explosives aboard a commercial flight from Tehran before handing them to agents tasked with attacking the annual ‘Free Iran’ gathering near Paris. Tens of thousands attended, including parliamentarians, former ministers, military leaders and international dignitaries from Europe, North America and the Middle East. Had the bomb exploded, Europe could have witnessed one of its deadliest terrorist atrocities since the Second World War. Belgian courts convicted Assadi and his accomplices after overwhelming evidence showed the plot had been directed from senior levels of the Iranian state. His diplomatic passport served as cover for terrorism, exposing the extent to which Tehran exploits embassies as operational centers for espionage, recruitment and terrorist activity.
These cases reveal a consistent strategy rather than isolated episodes. The regime identifies prominent opponents, gathers intelligence through MOIS networks, demonizes its targets and commissions violence through intermediaries. Criminal organizations provide the manpower while expendable recruits carry out the attacks. When operations fail, Tehran simply denies responsibility and dismisses them as ordinary criminality. Democratic societies have too often treated organized crime and state-sponsored terrorism as separate threats. Iran deliberately blurs that distinction.
Across Europe, security agencies have uncovered surveillance operations against Iranian dissidents, cyber-attacks, kidnapping plots, assassination attempts and influence campaigns targeting journalists, academics and policymakers. Coordinated disinformation complements these operations by demonizing the regime's democratic opponents while amplifying Tehran's propaganda through fake social media accounts and influence networks. Together, these activities serve one objective: preserving the clerical dictatorship through intimidation, deception and fear.
Years of appeasement encouraged this aggression. Western governments repeatedly pursued engagement while Tehran interpreted restraint as weakness. Diplomatic privileges remained intact despite mounting evidence of terrorist activity. Commercial interests often outweighed security concerns. Each concession reinforced the regime's belief that Europe lacked either the resolve or the unity to impose meaningful consequences. Recent events suggest that complacency is finally beginning to fade. British authorities have disrupted numerous Iranian-linked plots targeting individuals living in the United Kingdom, while MI5 has warned that it has responded to more than 20 Iran-backed plots since 2022. Recent prosecutions involving Iranian-linked espionage and surveillance networks demonstrate that Tehran is prepared to target dissidents, journalists and Jewish and Israeli interests on British soil. Intelligence agencies now rank Iran alongside Russia and China as one of the principal state threats confronting Europe. Sanctions against criminal networks acting on Tehran's behalf are a welcome step, but much stronger action is still required.
At long last the IRGC has been proscribed as a terrorist organization. Iranian diplomatic missions should be closed wherever credible intelligence indicates involvement in espionage or operational support for terrorism, and diplomats implicated in such activities should be expelled. Financial networks supporting Tehran's criminal proxies must be systematically dismantled, while closer intelligence cooperation among European allies would strengthen collective resilience against transnational repression.
Europe also needs a clearer understanding of Tehran's political warfare. Influence operations have penetrated think tanks, universities, lobbying organizations and sections of the media. Carefully cultivated narratives present the regime as a stabilizing force while discrediting democratic alternatives. Some promote these themes knowingly; others simply repeat sophisticated propaganda without recognizing its origins. Either way, Tehran benefits.
The conviction of Johannes Natland therefore deserves attention far beyond the courtroom. It is another warning that Iran's campaign against Europe has entered a dangerous new phase in which criminal networks increasingly carry out operations once entrusted to state agents. Terrorism has become a commercial enterprise directed by a regime that values deniability as highly as violence itself.
Britain and its allies possess the intelligence, legal powers and diplomatic influence needed to confront this threat. What has too often been lacking is the political resolve to recognize Iran's outsourced terrorism for what it is: a sustained campaign of state-sponsored violence conducted through criminal proxies. A regime that uses assassins abroad, hostage-taking at home and blackmail in diplomacy cannot be deterred by half measures. Europe's response must finally match the scale of the threat.
Struan Stevenson was a member of the European Parliament representing Scotland (1999-2014), president of the Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14). He is an author and international lecturer on the Middle East.