UK to proscribe Iran’s IRGC & Russia’s GRU as terrorist organisations

The British government on Monday announced plans to designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Russia's GRU as terrorist organisations.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the parliament that new powers with the government will ban support for these groups, with expressing a positive opinion or assisting them punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and acts of sabotage, including arson, on their behalf punishable by up to life imprisonment.

The government will put these new powers in draft regulations for the National Security (State Threats) Act, and the parliament would need to approve them.

Once approved, prosecutors will not need to establish a foreign power connection in every case, making it easier and more straightforward to build cases, according to BBC News.

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While the IRGC is infamous as the sword-arm of the Supreme Leader of Iran, and has been linked to several Islamist plots over the decades, Russia's GRU has been accused of waging an aggressive assassination campaign across the Western world along with a cyberwarfare campaign.

Western governments have linked the GRU to some of the most audacious attacks, such as the Salisbury Poisoning (2018), which involved a nerve agent attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and the Bulgarian Poisoning (2015), which targeted arms dealer Emiliyan Gebrev, who was supplying weapons to Ukraine, his son Hristo, and an unnamed business associate, as they were providing arms to Ukraine.

Mahmood said that "Iran and Russia are using proxies and thugs to do their dirty work on our shores".

"I have rapidly designated three groups so those working for them will be tracked down and put behind bars," Mahmood further said.

The British domestic intelligence agency MI5 has identified at least 20 potentially lethal Iranian-backed plots against people in the United Kingdom in the last year, and the IRGC is central to the Iranian state's operations, which particularly targets the Jewish community and Iranian dissidents, according to BBC.

The British government will also ban the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right (IMCR) along with the IRGC and GRU. The IMCR has claimed attacks on Jewish properties in London in recent time.