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Joe Adam George: Canada can no longer ignore Iran’s dangerous shadow network 

Several recent incidents have heightened concerns about entrenched Iranian regime activity inside our country

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In his book “From Auschwitz to Tehran,” Eran Hermoni recounts a meeting in October 2000 between Spanish prime minister José María Aznar and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As Khamenei prepared tea, Aznar asked him a direct question: “When you wake up in the morning, what is the first thing you think about?”

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Khamenei stirred his cup and replied bluntly: “To eliminate Israel.”

Joe Adam George: Canada can no longer ignore Iran’s dangerous shadow network  Back to video

The remark was revealing, but not surprising. The Islamic Republic’s revolutionary ideology has long framed its struggle as civilizational — a conflict not only with Israel but with the West itself. Khamenei frequently described western civilization as “deceitful, hypocritical and filled with lies,” rhetoric that helped justify Tehran’s decades-long campaign of terror and subversion abroad.

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Khamenei may be dead, but the machinery he built remains firmly in place. The Islamic Republic operates a global network of operatives, sympathizers and proxy groups tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From Hezbollah in Lebanon to covert sleeper cells embedded across the West, this infrastructure allows Tehran to project power far beyond its borders.

Canada has prominently featured within this network, serving as a hub for transnational criminal activity linked to regime actors — including money laundering, intimidation operations and organized crime.

Ottawa formally designated the IRGC as a terrorist entity after it shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in January 2020, killing all 176 people aboard, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. Yet the designation, while symbolically significant, has done little to dismantle the regime’s networks operating on Canadian soil.

Recent developments suggest the threat may be intensifying.

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As the United States and Israel escalate their military campaign against Iran, western security services increasingly fear Tehran could activate sleeper networks abroad in retaliation. Earlier this week, a U.S. federal alert warned law enforcement agencies about intercepted encrypted communications believed to have originated in Iran shortly after Khamenei’s death on Feb. 28. Officials reportedly believe the messages could serve as an “operational trigger” for sleeper assets across multiple countries.

Such warnings are not conjectural. Iran has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to orchestrate attacks far beyond the Middle East.

Last week, a Pakistani national was convicted of plotting with Iranian officials to assassinate prominent U.S. government figures, including President Donald Trump. The plot fits a long-standing pattern. In 2011, an Iranian agent attempted to recruit members of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington. And in 1994, a Hezbollah operative acting on Tehran’s orders bombed a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, killing 85 people.

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A defining feature of Iranian operations is outsourcing. Tehran frequently relies on non-Iranian intermediaries — criminal gangs, organized crime networks, ideological proxies or even minors — to carry out attacks. This creates deliberate distance between the regime and the act itself, allowing Tehran to evade detection and maintain plausible deniability while still achieving its objectives.

Recent developments around the world illustrate the scale of this network. British authorities last week arrested four suspects linked to an Iranian plot targeting Jewish communities in London, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer revealing that Tehran-backed actors had been tied to more than 20 potential lethal plots in Britain over the past year. Qatar detained 10 individuals linked to two IRGC sleeper cells, while Azerbaijan foiled multiple Iranian-backed terror conspiracies. A bar shooting in Austin, Texas, in which three people were killed, is being investigated for potential Iranian links.

Canada appears to be part of that global pattern with several incidents raising concerns about entrenched Iranian regime activity inside the country.

Shots were fired at the U.S. consulate in downtown Toronto earlier this week, with authorities calling it a “national security incident.” A gym in Richmond Hill, Ont. owned by an anti-regime activist was sprayed with gunfire. In British Columbia, an Iranian mathematics professor and dissident disappeared last month; the RCMP now suspects he was murdered. Authorities are also investigating whether recent shootings targeting three synagogues in the Toronto area may be connected to the broader escalation with Iran. A U.S.–based Kurdish individual told me the FBI warned them of possible Iranian threats in Canada ahead of their visit due to their anti-regime views.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has warned in its latest threat bulletin that Iranian state-sponsored cyber actors could target Canadian critical infrastructure or intimidate anti-regime diaspora communities.

None of this should come as a surprise. For years, security experts have warned that Canada has become an attractive operating environment for Iranian networks.

In 2008, Hezbollah reportedly activated suspected “sleeper cells” in Canada targeting Jewish communities to avenge the assassination of one of its military commanders. CSIS revealed last year that it had disrupted multiple lethal plots targeting individuals viewed by Tehran as enemies of the regime. The Hogue Commission report on foreign interference likewise identified Iran as a significant threat actor operating inside Canada.

The scale of the problem has been highlighted on multiple occasions. A 2023 Global News investigation that identified more than 700 individuals in Canada with alleged links to the Iranian regime, many accused by diaspora activists of intimidation, surveillance and harassment. A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) probe in the 2000s reportedly uncovered Hezbollah’s extensive Canadian money laundering and narcoterrorism operations.

Yet enforcement has lagged far behind the threat. Canada Border Services Agency officials have reportedly flagged nearly 30 suspected senior Iranian officials for deportation. Only one has actually been removed. FINTRAC’s 2022 Operational Alert on terrorist financing identified Hezbollah as the second most common international terrorist recipient of Canadian-sourced funds.

These gaps between policy and action send a dangerous message: that Canada remains a permissive environment for the regime’s activities.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government cannot afford such complacency. As tensions with Iran intensify, the risk of retaliation against western targets — including those in Canada — will only grow.

Ottawa must treat this moment not as a distant geopolitical crisis but as a domestic national security challenge. That means accelerating deportations of regime-linked officials, dismantling IRGC-linked financial and criminal networks operating in Canada, and strengthening protection for vulnerable communities — particularly Iranian dissidents and Jewish institutions.

Canada prides itself on being a safe haven for those fleeing authoritarian regimes. But that promise rings hollow if regime officials who escape are allowed to operate freely within our borders.

Regardless of whether Canada chooses to militarily intervene in the conflict with Iran, the threat already exists at home. Just as the October 7 attacks in Israel exposed Canada’s deeply entrenched Islamist problem, this conflict has revealed the reach of Iran’s shadow network inside the country. Political posturing — be it Middle East policy flip-flops or reflexive Trump-bashing — only distracts from a largely self-inflicted security failure. Unless Ottawa acts decisively, the consequences will soon become impossible to ignore.

Joe Adam George is a national security analyst with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the Canada research lead on Islamist extremism with the Middle East Forum in the U.S.

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