The United Kingdom designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group on Monday after it accused the proxy group of being behind a string of attacks on Jewish centers on behalf of Iran.
The U.K. had been an outlier in the Western world after the European Union designated the group a terrorist organization following Tehran’s massacre of protesters in January, but finally joined after accusing a new terrorist group — Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, also known as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya — of carrying out arson, vandalism, and stabbing attacks against Jewish centers. The proscription makes it a criminal offense to be a member of the Guard, attend its meetings, or display its logo in public.
The main holdup for the U.K. was technical, rather than moral: U.K. terrorism law previously only gave the government authority to designate nonstate groups, not arms of foreign states. New legislation finally gave the U.K. home secretary the power to ban state or state-linked groups such as the Guard, which is now being used against a state entity for the first time.
Justifying the decision, Security Minister Angela Eagle said the United States had “identified activity linked to the [Guard] involving threats to life and intimidation on U.K. soil.” She drew a direct connection between the Guard and the recent spate of attacks on Jewish centers.
“Sitting behind IMCR were members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, who almost certainly directed IMCR attacks across Europe,” she said, adding that the IMCR had claimed credit for seven attacks in the U.K. so far.
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The mysterious IMCR emerged in 2024, but only began operations on Feb. 28 when the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began. The group is believed by many terrorism analysts not to even exist in any real sense, but rather serves as a front group for the Guard to establish plausible deniability.
The Revolutionary Guard was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 2019, Canada in 2024, and Australia in 2025.
