Let's face it Iran is indiscriminatly hitting Israeli civilians targets including schools using cluster bombs.....

[mids2019]

Iran is firing missiles into heavily populated Israeli towns and have abandoned the pretence of targeting anything military.....this is just pure terrorism and does make you think what would happen if Iran did manage to develop a nuclear weapon.

Just hoping more of the missile launch sites can be taken out and this terrorist regime falls.

The importance of language in times of war again. You said this :

" Dont you believe 20 terror plots were prevented by counter terrorism?"

The Article you linked says this :

"MI5 has tracked more than twenty potentially lethal Iran-backed plots in just the one year since I last stood at this podium."

You added the word "terror".

I showed in posts above, with evidence, that these 20 plots, in so far as can be established, are mostly plots against Iranian dissidents in the UK. And abhorrent as that is, they were not terror plots. Your average Joan or John popping to the shops in Milton Keynes is not in danger of being blown up by the Iranian Government as you are alluding to when you insert the word "terror" into what was said.

And as @Notonthestairs says, the article mentions Russia an lot. Above Iran. It also mentions China a fair amount. And this line, at the top:

"But the aggregate scale of the terrorist threat remains huge. And the range of what’s coming at us – from terrorists holding poisonous Islamist, Extreme Right Wing or other ideologies - just keeps growing."

Yes people believe what the UK security services say. We hear what they say and understand it. Countries such as Russia, Iran and China are out to get their own dissidents that the UK have granted asylum and protection to. Extremists influenced by ISIS (Sunni) plot and do Bomb attacks. And note this "Extreme Right Wing or other ideologies"

All threats need to be taken seriously, no matter where from, And the security services do a great job. They especially do a great job protecting those people who are seeking or have been granted asylum. Those are the people these other states want to harm.

We hear what MI5 say. We believe what they say. But we are not changing what they say to try to justify a war.

What did Tony Blair say about the relationship between the left and Islamicists ?

He said:

"Progressive' politicians are failing to tackle Left-wing anti-Semitism because they won't tackle the 'unholy alliance' between parts of their movement and hardline Islamists" , Tony Blair has warned.

'Because failure to do so creates the climate in which, even if anti-Semitism is not explicitly condoned, it flourishes.'
He also warned that 'without a challenge to the ideology that encourages anti-Semitism, while clothing it in indignation at the human cost of war, incidents like the one with the ambulances will continue to the shame of our society'.

For poster who come back with the 'it's in the DM obviously not true'. He did say it and it's reported in lots of different news outlets.

https://anglicanmainstream.org/article/tony-blair-says-the-left-has-to-end-its-unholy-alliance-with-islamists-to-stamp-out-anti-semitism/

It's even on YouTube for people who say 'I don't trust MSM'

Some will agree and some will disagree with him. The secretary of the Muslim Council calls Tony Blair 'unhinged' .

Yep. He wrote it originally in The Times and it got picked up others.

I tend to pop that on when using DM because some use that retort as it that means it isn't true. Most often it is replicated or in this case written about elsewhere first.

Well I hope neither Tony Blair nor anyone else is suggesting that anyone that questions the motivations and likely outcomes of the war is an antisemite Islamist. Because that would include large swathes of the country.

Blair is on Trump's so called 'Board of Peace'

I can understand that. I would not say it like that though, that's for sure.

Ik it generally is about a few posts after.

As an aside, and I am not disputing what you say on this, I find it interesting how antisemitism has been changed the past couple of years. How it was a far right thing, but now it has been reinvented that it's the far left, and the far right are now defending Judaism.

I was reading an Orwell essay on it recently, and it was rampant in the UK post war. They really have gotten it from everywhere in History.

That by the way is why I totally support the existence of Isreal.

He says Mi5 has tracked 20 potentially lethal attacks, he doesn't say they were all in the UK nor what they were, plus you ve cleverly added in the word "terror" ...

Insinuating incorrectly, this is somehow like the IRA bombing plots once again.

Btw despite all this death, bombing & potentially economic collapse... the IRGC and the Iranian Embassy is still alive and kicking in the UK.

I would suggest that if Iran poses such a threat, why are they still here?

Your article focusing primarily on the Russian threat.

If we look at this link to Islamic terrorism, particularly from 1979 to 2024, we can clearly see that 80% of the Islamic terror attacks came from Taliban, Islamic State, Boko Haram, al Shabab and al Qaeda and all these groups have the following in common, they are all Sunni Muslim and none of them have any links to Iran, with the exception that the following groups have all attacked Iran - al Qaeda, Islamic state and the Taliban.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism

Never mentioned the IRA. Why bring in an organisation that hasn't bombed in the UK for a very long time? In case you hadn't realised the last lot of bombs in London or Manchester were nothing to do with the IRA. Some are Islamists and others lone wolf who appear to read up on Islamist or other writings.

"British spies have foiled 43 terrorist plots since 2017 that could have killed thousands had they been successful, MI5 has revealed.
In a rare public update regarding continued threats to the UK, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum said his officers managed to foil dozens of plots where mass murderers would have utilised bombs and firearms. McCallum added 20 Iran-backed assassination attempts had been prevented in the UK since 2022. Sounds pretty terror inflicting to me. Maybe you wouldn't find it terrorising. Most people would find assination and plots where mass murdrers utlised bombs as fairly terrorising.

Your question was: Why are Iran still here? Iran is a country, surely you realise that. Why is it still there? That makes no sense at all. Why do posters constantly attempt to minimize the threat they pose in oposition to what counter terrorism and M!5 and others who are trained and paid to stop attacks and prevent terrorism. Armchair mumsnetters, which welall are, do not know what terror related plots and the subsequent stopping of them, goes on behind the scenes, but obviously it's of no worry to some. I'll glady leave that to the experts. 🙄

This article this year about arrests of Iranian men involved in different activities:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/eight-arrested-in-connection-with-suspected-terrorist-plot-met-police-5Hjd6Gq2/

All Iranian men. Very recent arrests and so little information at present.

Yup. And as another poster said, it might have been your good self, ain't it odd how the biggest threat always changes to who the US happens to be at war against.

And I would add, ain't it odd how the dislike between factions of Sunni and Shia have been forgotten, and the dislike between different factions of the same branches. There are even different Talibans bombing each other.

But at the moment every terror attack/ battle appears to be getting lumped onto Iran.

The word "aligned" is doing overtime, and the word "inspired" has been thrown out the window. ISIS inspired has changed to Iran aligned it seems.

The Iranian Government is an abhorrent and brutal theocratic organization. But to justify this war, they must be seen as a world threat. A danger to everyone on earth.

Which is why it is supposed to be a 'military operation' rather than a war, just that Trump and Rubio keep forgetting that little detail.

The article you posted mentions the troubles.

"Finally on terrorism, Northern Ireland. Communities there are now living through the longest period without a national security attack since the start of the Troubles. We will continue, with the police, to bear down on residual threats and degrade terrorist capabilities."

I said I never mentioned the IRA. I didn't compare Iran or the current problems to the IRA at all.

The article mentions them and how they continue to degrade terrorist capabilities. So what.

Jeezzz you re hard work... Insinuate... look up its meaning, you deliberately added in the word Terror.

Irgc/embassy/Iran HERE in London.... we still haven't banned or expelled either, you'd think we would as Iran is about to kill 1000s....

"Islamist plots..." so not ones backed by Iran... a country that until very recently, we gave £400m

No i don't think the main serious threat to the UK was Iran, it might well be now though.

The main threat to the UK is Russia and the collapse of prisons run by the Kurds in N. Syria.

I think the lack of discussion on "Iran is indiscriminatly hitting Israeli civilians targets including schools using cluster bombs." is likely because there is not a lot coming out of Israel on this at the moment.

State of war and all that. Isreal understandably does not want Iran to know what it hits, and there will be an element of downplaying too.

Maybe the mission creep of what the US and Israel define as targets is playing a part in that too. And the fact that Trump keeps saying Iran is defeated and has almost no capability left.

I personally think the ammo count thing is playing a part. If interceptor ammo is running low, the last thing they want known is if Iranian attacks are getting through. And we seem to be seeing this info block from the other Gulf states, that we need to remember are also authoritarian.

War is ugly. And this one is getting uglier.

I know what insinuate means. You think a different main threat, so what, your opinion is worth no more or no less than anyone elses. It may turn out to be Iran or Russia is the biggest threat or another orgnisaton or state, it does change as things change.

Maybe the UK has many threats, Russia and Iran or the excaped prisoners from Syria as you are proposing, better let MI5 know it case they are too busy just keeping an eye on Iranian proxies 😉

What does it really matter which one I feel, or you feel is the greatest threat anyway on a thread on MN. The people who make those decisions aren't interested in little disagreements on MN between people who don't know all the ins and outs of what is going on. Let's not pretend we do 🙄

I take MN threads for what they are, people's differing opinion. I listen to some, I ignore others. I tend to ignore people who seem to be looking for a spat as if what they say is more important that anyone else, it really isn't. Why get so het up over a mere discussion thread.