A ‘VULNERABLE’ IRAN may activate a network of sleeper cells across the West in the face of the Israeli bombing campaign, experts have warned.
With its military and top Islamist leadership on the ropes, analysts say a weakened Iran could resort to asymmetric terror warfare in a bid to sow chaos against its enemies.
It has now been more than a week since Israel began pounding Iran’s nuclear facilities and other military targets.
The goal, as the Israelis say, is to thwart the Iranian regime’s efforts to produce nuclear weapons – as well as more ballistic missiles, including long-range weapons that can strike targets far beyond Israel.
While Iran has been responding by launching frequent salvos of ballistic missiles, its top military command has been decapitated.
And Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been forced to live in underground bunkers.
Experts now fear that a vicious Iran could awaken its network of sleeper cells to carry out terror plots across the West.
Barak Seener, a security and defence expert at Henry Jackson Society and Iran expert, said: “The very fact now that the Iranian regime is volatile, it’s targeted, and it’s highly vulnerable — that’s what actually makes it increasingly dangerous to the West.”
Iran’s murderous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is thought to run an extensive network of sleeper cells across the world.
Mr Seener said that these sleeper cells could be regular people living regular lives.
But when given the signal, they could carry out terrorist activities targeting the West.
These terror operations could target public infrastructure and even civilians, with no weapons off the table, experts warn.
The sleeper cells could even carry out assassination attempts on top leaders that could throw the world into chaos.
Last year, an Iranian agent was charged with plotting to kill Donald Trump in an assassination that would have shaken the world.
US prosecutors say the rogue state told ex-con Farhad Shakeri — said to be hiding in Tehran — to devise a seven-day plan to spy on and murder him.
Prosecutors said an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard told Shakeri to devise a plan to eliminate the President elect.
They claim the planned hit was an attempt to take vengeance for a US drone strike ordered by Trump that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, then said to be the world’s No1 terrorist, in 2020.
Trump’s former security advisor, John Bolton, said the US President is “at the top” of an “assassination list” from the Middle East nation.
Mr Seener said: “They live amongst us in regular communities, have regular jobs, and they just are awaiting being activated to conduct malign activities, whether it be through a telephone text or a beeper, and then they already know what they are going to be doing.
“If the regime feels threatened and on the verge of being toppled, then they may say, ‘you’re going to go down with us,’ and at that point they may unleash their sleeper cells.”
In an op-ed for The Sun, expert Mark Almond wrote: “Iran’s Islamic regime is a dangerous, wounded predator.
“It cannot defeat Israel, but it could go mad and unleash terrorism, even using chemical weapons, which its industries can make much more easily than nuclear weapons.”
Mr Seener said the attacks could range from an attack against a synagogue, an embassy, or blowing up a dirty bomb in Central London.
Sir Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, warned back in October that Iran could turn on UK targets if it felt Britain was too enthusiastic in its support for Israel.
He said the attacks could increase if the Middle East conflict intensifies.
In August, Matt Jukes, the head of Counter Terror Policing, warned that Britain is facing an increase in plots by hostile states.
He said Iranian dissidents and diaspora communities have been “clearly at risk of kidnapping or assassination”.
“These are people who are doing it daily. And when you are projecting soft power, you’re creating the cultural milieu in which terrorism can be conducted much more readily.
Counterterror police have investigated 15 of these cases alongside MI5.
MI5 has responded to 20 plots backed by Iran since 2022, it was reported.
Mr Seener said: “The reason why the Irgc can act with impunity, and why British citizens are at risk, is because of the British Government’s unwillingness and failure to designate the Irgc as a terrorist organisation.
“It means that they are able to conduct activities and infiltrate mosques, charities, community centres, cultural centres, and many of them, their directorship has been directly appointed by the supreme leader, Khamenei.”
“British Shias go on pilgrimages to religious sites in Iran and Iraq. They are targeted by the IRGC and recruited, so that when they return to the UK, they can conduct surveillance on potential targets.”
By Sayan Bose, Foreign News Reporter
Iran-fuelled hit squads on the streets of the UK have been linked to at least 15 threats to kill or kidnap detected by authorities.
They are all part of a campaign of intimidation aimed at those who speak out against the hardline regime.
The MI5 has accused Tehran of more than a dozen assassination and kidnap plots in Britain against dissidents and media organisations in the past two years.
Officials have previously warned that the threat against Iranian critics living in the UK has ramped up drastically after the horror October 7 attacks.
And given the hostile situation in the Middle East, Iran could ramp up its secret terror activities in the UK, Europe and the US, experts fear.
In 2022, Major Gen Hossein Salami, the Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC warned: “You’ve tried us before. Watch out because we’re coming for you.”
Last year, Iranian TV journalist Pouria Zeraati was stabbed outside his home in London, sparking an investigation led by counter-terrorism police.
The suspects were believed to be proxy agents hired by Tehran.
Mr Zeraati works for Iran International, a London-based Persian-speaking channel which has reported on Iran’s human rights violations.
He said a man approached him and asked for £3 before another man appeared and stabbed him in the leg.
The two fled in a car being driven by a third man, leaving Mr Zeraati bleeding in the street.
Investigators believed the three culprits were able to flee the country on a flight from Heathrow within hours of the attack.
Mr Zeraati, whose organisation has been a vocal critic of Iran, said the attack was a “warning shot” from Tehran.
He called on the UK government to declare the IRGC a terrorist group to stop it from spreading its doctrine.
He said: “It will also send a clear message to the regime in Iran that enough is enough.
“The whole of Western civilisation is in danger because of the threat the IRGC poses.”
A report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found almost half of journalists who covered Iran from the UK reported being physically or verbally harassed in the past five years.
Individuals have been sent death threats by text and voice notes, with one message noting that the “water underneath Westminster Bridge was very deep”.
One said they were constantly worried about Iran targeting their children, saying: “I wake up in the middle of the night. I check my son to see if he’s there. I won’t let him play in the garden on his own. I have to be there. I’m on alert constantly.”
Another reporter told the RSF she had a package, which was designed to look like it contained anthrax, hand-delivered to her apartment block.
While female TV journalist was approached on a London bus by a man who told her: “We will kill you. You are a very bad person.”
All of them are understood to have voiced their dissent against Tehran.
The IRGC is the principal supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are proscribed in the UK.
Amid threats of all-out war in the Middle East, officials last year wanted to expedite tightening domestic terror laws to ban IRGC operatives from nurturing Islamist terrorism at home.
Current sanctions on Iran do not prevent state-linked organisations spreading jihadi propaganda or carrying out soft-power activities designed to radicalize British citizens.
Kasra Aarabi, Director of IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran, said: “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is the most antisemitic armed Islamist extremist organisation in the world.
“The government needs to proscribe the IRGC as a matter of urgency.
“The failure to proscribe the IRGC is putting British lives at risk, not least those from the British-Jewish community and British-Iranian diaspora —the two primary targets of IRGC terrorism in the UK.”
SEX aid pill Viagra helps stiffen your skeleton, a study suggests.
The little blue tablet was found to increase production of vital bone cells — so could one day prevent back pain and fractures in old age.
Researchers found sildenafil, which is branded as Viagra, helped human stem cells transform into osteoblasts, the bone-building cells.
These are vital as the human skeleton regenerates and is completely replaced roughly once every ten years.
As we age, we lose more bone than we build, increasing the risk of breaks or osteoporosis, which makes bones brittle and painful.
The Peking University team’s follow-up tests on mice also suggested sildenafil would prevent bone loss.
Dr Menglong Hu and Dr Likun Wu said: “Our findings offer new insights into the physiological effects of the medicine.
“Sildenafil enhanced stem cell osteogenic differentiation and inhibited bone loss — it may usefully treat osteoporosis.”
More than three million Britons suffer osteoporosis. Other treatments exist but the researchers said it would be handy to have more cheap and readily available drugs.
They said: “Any new drug must be evaluated. This is time-consuming, expensive and risky. But sildenafil is approved and safe.”
Viagra was invented as a heart drug in the 1980s before it was found to help with erectile dysfunction.
Studies have since suggested it might also reduce dementia risk.
A BRIDE to be was killed just days before her wedding in a head-on car wreck with a drunk, wrong-way driver.
Katelyn Callahan, 23, was traveling with her fiancé, Tristen Cherry, 24, along with two teen passengers near Oklahoma City when 29-year-old Sergio Ibarra slammed into them on May 2.
Ibarra entered the I-44 highway in the wrong direction, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.
Callahan was pronounced dead at the scene while Cherry and the teenagers, Rudi Kroll and Jayli Diel, both 17, were sent to the hospital in critical condition.
The couple was returning from the Calf Fry Festival in Stillwater at the time.
Authorities say Ibarra was intoxicated at the time of the crash, and he’s been charged with first-degree manslaughter and three counts of DUI causing great bodily injury.
Ibarra and his 36-year-old passenger were also hospitalized as a result of the crash.
Authorities say Ibarra was going the wrong direction on the highway for about half a mile before slamming into Callahan’s car.
Cherry and Callahan were only weeks away from their wedding, which was set to happen on May 31, in Bristow, Oklahoma.
The two dated for three years, becoming an official couple after Cherry asked Callahan to be his date at his fraternity’s formal.
Before their nuptials, the couple recently moved in together and adopted two dogs.
The crash sent Cherry into a coma for nearly three weeks, until he awoke to learn that his beloved fiancée had died.
“After several years into knowing of each other, Katelyn attending Kiefer High School and Tristen at Bixby High School, just 10 minutes apart.
“They couldn’t put a face to the name but only knowing where each other would be.
“Tristen and Katelyn had been keeping up with one another after several months of random snaps or offering assistance for one another.
“Tristen, knowingly how beautiful inside and out Katelyn is, it was irresistible and he would be dumb to not ask this angel on a date.
“The couple met at Tristen’s fraternity formal after he had asked for her to be his date.
“A once in a lifetime moment of a feeling for the two after dancing, talking, showing common interests and sharing memories and knowledge of mutual friends, they give it a shot or as they say, God’s plan.
“The two have been inseparable since and still adore the time they first locked eyes and felt the strength they both had for each other, little did they know they’d be getting married in the near future.
“The love continues to grow as days go by and forever shall they both live healthy and compassionate, sharing their heart and soul, blood in blood out, undying love.”
Source: The Knot
Cherry had several injuries, including a broken femur, a lacerated kidney, and 64 facial fractures.
He also lost seven teeth and had his mouth wired shut, according to his stepmom, Traci Wages-Cherry.
“He couldn’t talk,” she told local NBC affiliate, KJRH-TV.
“His eyes were swollen shut, so he couldn’t see.”
Cherry, who was in the backseat at the time of the crash, told the outlet that he remembers what happened just before the crash.
“I kind of sat up in my seat, and I see headlights,” he said. “I said, ‘Katelyn, I love you.’ And we hit.”
When looking at photos of Callahan in her wedding dress — that she never got to wear — Cherry kept gushing about his college sweetheart.
“She was gorgeous. All my groomsmen came up. Some of her bridesmaids came up,” Cherry said, recalling how his family and wedding party visited him at the hospital on what would have been his wedding day.
A GoFundMe was created on behalf of Callahan’s family to help cover funeral expenses and “support her family with any additional needs as they grieve and try to heal,” according to the page.
At the time of writing, the fundraiser has more than $17,200 out of a $20,000 goal.
For now, Cherry said that he is focusing on his long road to recovery, both physical and emotional.
“The most I can ask for at this point is healing,” he said. “Healing takes time, and time takes healing.”
Kroll and Diel, the teen passengers in Callahan’s car, are still in the hospital weeks after the crash.
