UK: scandal over Iranian regime's influence in running a children's camp

On May 3, the British government arrested seven Iranian nationals, in two separate counterterrorism operations, for allegedly planning an attack against the Israeli embassy in London.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper stated that hundreds of police officers and personnel have been involved in these operations, describing them as "the biggest operations against the threat to the state and against terrorism" in recent years.

The detained Iranian nationals allegedly belong to Unit 840, which is reportedly responsible for assassination and kidnapping missions on behalf of Tehran. A former intelligence officer told the Scottish newspaper The National that some operatives may have entered the UK disguised as migrants arriving on small boats.

Similarly, last year, the head of Britain's MI5 security service, Ken McCallum, said that his agents and the police had foiled 20 "potentially lethal" plots backed by Iran since 2022, most targeting Iranians living in the UK.

According to McCallum, these plots represent "potentially lethal threats against British citizens and residentsin the UK."

Following the arrest of the seven Iranian nationals, The Times reported that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard of Iran is allowed to operate freely in the country.

Camp Wilayah: A vacation plan linked to Tehran.

Last week, The Times also reported that a Islamic group linked to Iran has raised concerns in the United Kingdom over its plan to organize a summer camp for children.

Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission (AIM) is a Shiite and anti-Semitic Muslim organization based in Cricklewood, northwest London. Founded in 2003, AIM is dedicated to promoting Islamic teachings and for several years has organized a summer camp for children aged 9-14 in the Hertfordshire countryside.

This Islamist organization has called Qasem Soleimani a "great hero," according to The Spectator. Soleimani was the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps killed in 2020 in a U.S. drone strike.

Also, AIM shares online sermons and speeches by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini. The organization describes these posts as “a bridge between Islamic teachings and contemporary audiences.”

In addition to this, The Times also reported that on October 12, 2023, five days after Hamas's attack on Israel, this organization's Instagram account shared a message stating that "a flood was inevitable" and that the "Zionists brought this disaster on themselves."

AIM has likewise launched a national campaign urging the public to cancel their television license in protest of the BBC's "complicity" in what they consider the "Israeli genocide of Palestinians."

According to this Iranian organization, which operates freely in the UK, "the BBC, funded by the compulsory television license, has always been a instrument of state propaganda that reinforces the Israeli narrative."

Robert Jenrick, shadow attorney general, stated that children should not be allowed to attend camps run by supporters of the Iranian regime, The Times reported.

Lord Walney, a former government adviser on extremism, said he was alarmed by AIM's plans to run a children's summer camp: "We cannot allow the propaganda and influence of this theocratic dictatorship to spread to the children of the UK," he said.

Starmer's palliatives against illegal immigration.

Keir Starmer announced Monday new measures to "finally take back control" of the borders.

Visibly concerned, the Labor prime minister stated, "In 2023 illegal immigration reached almost 1 million people. That's almost the population of Birmingham. Our second largest city. That's not control, that's chaos."

Among the measures proposed by the prime minister are strengthening several areas of the migration system, including the work, family reunification and student visa and English language proficiency requirements.

For many Britons Starmer's new measures are nothing more than palliatives on immigration control. When Islamic organizations embedded in the UK promote English-language publications linked to the Iranian regime, Starmer’s least pressing concern should be whether illegal immigrants speak English.

In response to the Prime Minister’s assertions, published an article as recently as Monday stating that the total number of immigrants entering the UK matters, but what "matters even more is who enters and how they behave."

Faced with a series of crimes perpetrated by illegal immigrants and asylum seekers living in the U.K., the British newspaper claimed that "the government has sided with the perpetrators," arguing that we should not be impressed by the fact that the Iranians arrested in early May were living in the UK.

During Monday's press conference, the prime minister blamed the previous Conservative government for the severe migration crisis, overlooking that in 2024 he told the BBC that Labour would resume processing asylum claims for illegal arrivals to the United Kingdom.

"For years, the system in this country has operated on the basis that if someone applies for asylum, they are processed," Starmer said at the time.