Canada’s intelligence agency is pointing to escalating aggression by Iran in Western countries, ranking the country among the foremost perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage.
In its annual report released this week, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), says Iran has continued to conduct hostile activities in Canada and will “continue to target its perceived enemies even when living in foreign countries in support of its ultimate goal of regime preservation.”
CSIS called Iran’s external operations in Western countries “aggressive and expansive,” including lethal plots in the US, the UK, and several European countries.
Those activities included elicitation, cultivation, coercion, illicit financing, malicious cyber activities, and information manipulation.
“Iran and its intelligence services are interested in influencing and clandestinely collecting information on the Iranian community, including anti-regime activists and political dissidents; human, women’s and minority rights activists; and fugitives wanted by the regime,” the report read.
Earlier this week, Canadian parliamentarians unanimously voted on a non-binding motion calling for the Iranian regime’s paramilitary force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), as a terrorist entity and expelling approximately 700 Iranian agents from Canada.
While the Liberal party, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, supported a similar motion in 2018, the IRGC has not been listed as a terrorist organization. The government and experts often mention that some Iranians are obligated to join it during their mandatory military service.
In November 2022, CSIS first acknowledged that it was actively investigating what it called multiple "credible" death threats from Iran aimed at individuals in Canada, as reported by CBC News.
Subsequent reports by CBC News that year highlighted how Iranian dissidents in Canada said they were being watched and are under threat from the regime in Iran. Global News similarly reported in 2023 that Iranian dissidents live in fear of imminent harm from the Islamic Republic's agents.
Adding to those fears, the Iranian-Canadian diaspora has long warned the government that Canada harbors regime-affiliated officials on its soil.
Over a year following the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran in 2022 – and the diaspora’s continued calls not to allow regime-affiliated officials into the country – the government began taking some action to bar individuals from entering and began proceedings for deportations.
The diaspora has maintained that the current measures do not suffice and that if the IRGC were on the terrorist list, members who have gained Canadian citizenship would be responsible for crimes committed abroad and subject to much harsher penalties.
After Wednesday's vote, activists have urged to follow-through and finally designate the IRGC.
That included Iranian-Canadian dissident Hamed Esmaeilion, who lost his wife and daughter in January 2020, when the IRGC shot down Ukrainian Flight PS752 minutes after takeoff from Tehran.
The downing killed all 176 people onboard, which included 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
During the 4-year commemoration ceremony for the victims of the downing of PS752, Trudeau said his government is looking "for ways to responsibly list the IRGC as a terrorist organization."
The CSIS report also said that cyber attacks carried out by the Islamic Republic target Canada.
“Iran combines offensive cyber operations with cyber-enabled influence operations to assist in the pursuit of its geopolitical goals,” according to the CSIS report. “Canada remains a target for opportunistic credential harvesting, phishing attacks, and exploitation of digital infrastructure to facilitate future targeting opportunities against individuals of interest.”
According to Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center (MTAC), Iran, Russia, and China will likely try to influence elections in the US and elsewhere in 2024.
In February, Iranian-Canadian MP Ali Ehsassi called for an investigation into Tehran's possible interference in the election.
“Given the catalog of malign and illegal activities committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran on Canadian soil, it would be naïve to believe that the Iranian regime has any compunction to shape public opinion in Canada,” he wrote to the Foreign Interference Commission, requesting testimony and relevant documents from Iranian-Canadians and others with substantial interests in the case.
Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, re-elected to parliament in March, conveyed to the Rouydad 24 website his belief that Iran's decision to risk attacking Israel in April stemmed from its possession of nuclear weapons.
Moreover, he drew attention to remarks by Kamal Kharrazi, senior foreign policy advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday, who said that Tehran will change its nuclear doctrine if Israel attacks its atomic facilities. For years, the Islamic Republic has insisted that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, despite enriching uranium to 60-percent purity, which can only have a weaponization purpose.
“In my opinion, we have achieved nuclear weapons, but we do not announce it. It means our policy is to possess nuclear bombs, but our declared policy is currently within the framework of the JCPOA. The reason is that when countries want to confront others, their capabilities must be compatible, and Iran's compatibility with America and Israel means that Iran must have nuclear weapons,” Ardestani was quoted as saying.
Clearly putting Iran in the same trench as Russia, Ardestani added, “In a climate where Russia has attacked Ukraine and Israel has attacked Gaza, and Iran is a staunch supporter of the Resistance Front, it is natural for the containment system to require that Iran possess nuclear bombs. However, whether Iran declares it is another matter.”
The conservative politician, hailing from Isfahan Province, representing a district close to the Natanz nuclear facility, is a trusted regime figure, because he was allowed to run and win in the tightly orchestrated March parliamentary elections.
Ardestani, 63, has served in the government in various capacities since his youth from the early 1980s, and was a close ally of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is not clear if he is a member of the hardliner Paydari party, dominating the newly elected parliament, but he also served a four-year term from 2012-2016 as an Ahmadinejad supporter. He is known as a foreign policy expert who managed foreign students sent abroad by the government.
On Thursday, Kamal Kharrazi was quoted by the semi official ISNA news website as saying, “If they [Israel] dare to strike Iran's nuclear facilities, our level of deterrence will change. We have experienced deterrence at the conventional level so far. If they intend to strike Iran's nuclear capabilities, naturally, it could lead to a change in Iran's nuclear doctrine.”
Kharrazi's statement seemed designed to be a deterrence to any Israeli plans to attack its nuclear facilities. Although he also threatened a change of doctrine if Iran’s existence is threatened, any Israeli attack will most likely be aimed at valuable strategic targets, not at obliterating Iran. It is possible that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s advisor was referring to possible Israeli threats against the regime and its leaders, not the existence of Iran as a country.
On April 18, a senior IRGC commander had also warned that Tehran could change its nuclear policies if Israel continues to threaten to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.
“If the fake Zionist regime wants to use the threat of attacking nuclear sites to put pressure on Iran, it is possible and conceivable for the Islamic Republic to revise its nuclear doctrine and policies, and deviate from its past declared considerations,” said Ahmad Haghtalab, who oversees the security of Iran’s nuclear sites.