A “Pop Up” Terrorism Network Has Ensnarled Europe

Since the U.S. war on Iran broke out in late February, a rash of terrorist attacks have struck Europe and primarily targeted Jewish communities. Western intelligence agencies believe Iran is likely behind these operations. But London-based counter-terrorism expert, Roger Macmillan, tells The Threat that this network is nearly impossible to track. It’s recruitment and propagandizing takes place through social media channels. and most of its operatives are simply paid teenagers. This is the story of the HAYI terrorist network.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I'm Jason Wolman. And I'm Hagar Shimalli. And welcome to the Threat Podcast. Every week, we'll analyze and discuss the most pressing yet not always so visible threats to global security and the movements and ideologies that fuel extremism and terrorism.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

We'll take listeners to the front lines of these battles, both at home and abroad, and we'll talk with the key players in law enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy, and academia who are working to counter these threats.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Welcome to the Threat Podcast. I'm Jay Solomon.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

And I'm Hagar Shamali.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Over the past two months, Europe has been gripped by a wave of terrorist attacks claimed by a shadowy online extremist network known by its Arabic language acronym HAI. Its targets have primarily been Jewish communities in the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands, but symbols of American economic power, such as Bank of America's Paris headquarters, have also been struck. The consensus amongst Western intelligence services is that Iran and its elite military unit, the IRGC, are behind Hayi, but counterterrorism experts who study the network say it's extremely difficult to combat as Hayi recruits and propagandizes through social media channels such as Telegram and relies heavily on locally paid operatives. Many of them are teenagers or criminal gangs who don't even know they're taking orders from Tehran. So how does Europe stop Hay from conducting more attacks? And could it train its sights on the US? Today we are extremely lucky to have on from London Roger Macmillan, who's been one of the most important counterterrorism experts uncovering Iran's terrorist infrastructure in Europe. Roger previously led security at Iran International, the anti-regime Persian-language satellite channel that's faced numerous terrorist threats emanating out of Iran. And he was also one of the first to raise the alarm bells about Hay once it became operating shortly after the US and Israel launched joint military operations against Iran in late February. Roger, welcome to the threat. Thank you very much indeed. Great to be here. Could you tell us when you first started noticing Hayi and what's unique about its operations? Because you've been studying Iran's kind of terror infrastructure for a while, so you were probably pretty adept at seeing it. But could you just explain first when it arised and what was unique about it?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

So, first of all, it was not just me solely. There's a group of sort of the experts out there, and I'm not alone in this. And we we share information, we share perspectives. But really, this started to be seen around about the 9th of March, shortly after the Operation Epic Fury uh began. And there are a number of what seemed like sort of low-level, fairly amateur-ish attacks appearing in Liège, moving to Rotterdam, Amsterdam, until the sort of the MO started to develop. And I think when by the time we saw the it change from Western Europe and into the attacks in London, first of all, with the Hatsolo ambulance, people then started saying, we have a pattern here. We have a new entity that has properly emerged that nobody ever heard of before. You know, although people cannot yet pin it directly on Iran, this is not a brand new grassroot movement. This is not something that just springs out of nowhere and within the space of less than two months has affected some 17 attacks across Europe. And the use of kids, the youth, the criminal gangs, etc., it's a different thing. But this is, I said, it's not a grassroot movement. This is a deliberate extension of the way that they operate within Iran, the use of a proxy. And in this case, it's highly likely when you look at the sort of the naming structure of the uh Harakat Al-Ashab al-Yameen al-Islamiyya, you know, you it's it follows the same sort of meter as many other uh Shia-backed Islamic resistance of Iraq organizations that you know perpetrate these attacks. You also have to look at, for example, some of the symbology in it. Now, I'm not going into the same level as uh you know the angels and demons, but they you know, what you look at, you see in this, you've got the very similar sort of standard of the raised right hand with a weapon, on the and on the back of it, you're seeing, first of all, you saw a laurel, and then you saw a globe. And this is really, you know, taking it a step forward from the Islamic resistance, where you see a similar sort of logo, but on the back of a map of Iraq, with an AK-47, you're now seeing something which is perhaps a bit more sinister, that you have uh a Dragonov sniper rifle indicating reach, precision, but you also have the globe, which indicates potentially their intent to operate not just in Iraq, not just in Europe, but wherever they see fit.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

So far, there haven't been any deaths. Is that by design, or do you are are they more focused on sort of inciting panic, certainly amongst the Jewish community, or is it just lucky at this stage?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

I think I think it's a combination of both. I think it's I think it is deliberate because what they have said is we can escalate, we will escalate and we will increase uh what we're doing. And one of the ways of doing that is just by use of uh use of these sort of, as has been described by UK counter-terror police, these mugs, effectively, these idiots who are just being paid a few pounds, a few, you know, a few dollars to perpetrate these attacks, they're not particularly effective, they're not designed to be effective. You know, what they are designed to do is exactly as you said, instill fear, instill panic, instill concern, you know, it cause division in communities, cause division and suspicion. You know, when you will be looking at somebody, he looks up and said, is he going to? No, it's this is what they're doing. And they're doing that deliberately in the UK to cause us to feel this fear, to feel the pain, because they know they can do this so simply. And advertising, recruit someone, a few pounds, go and throw this bottle, throw a brick. Anything like that can be so easily achieved with minimal control, and and of course, minimal fingerprints from the Iranian state on it. It's all deniable, and that's what they want.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Roger, can you unpack a little bit more about the question of recruiting? Um and many of them, as you said, they seem to be relatively young. How are these recruits reached and how are they paid?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Of the ones that we've we've noticed so far, then it tends to be recruited by um by Snapchat or by Telegram. Now, Telegram is not particularly favored in UK or Europe. It's not one of the popular ones. We tend to use um WhatsApp or we would use, or the kids would use Snapchat. So, but it is through social media that they are being attracted and being undeveloped. Um this is a very different way of recruitment. This is not your old school 1980s Soviet-style recruitment where you know long attempts to find someone, to convert them, to persuade them to come to your cause. This is a simple, hey, we've got a job. Who fancies doing this? Here's some money, who's up for it? It'll be a laugh. Um, you know, the old tide pods thing. This is just for for money, this is purely for financial gain in most of the cases, it would seem. I'm sure there are cases where people how are more ideologically committed to it, um, but that's not really been evidence yet. And so some of that's still been going through the courts, so we have to be careful what we say. But that's that is tends to be that the way that they'll do it. This is this is um this is sort of violence as a service. This is this is terror by text, as it's been called, and this is the way that they will do it. It's very, very different to what has been seen before. This is now almost terrorism in an AI-driven cyber era, which is very different to what um I certainly grew up with, the IRA threats in the Soviet Union.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

It's almost, I mean, I know, you know, I worked closely with Masi Alinejad, who Jay, you you mentioned in the article that you wrote about HII, that I would recommend everybody go to, by the way. It's such a good piece. Masalinijad is an Iranian American women's rights activist here who's been targeted by individuals whom the IRGC hired uh for murder or for kidnapping, um, and so on. And so it reminds me of that, right? You said like it's like in that case, it was murder for hire. And that is actually the legal charge that these folks faced. So the thing I want to follow up with on that is that how easy or hard is it to monitor those Hayi is recruiting? And are they getting paid in a fashion that is also traceable?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

So it's very difficult to find out who they are because it's done over multiple platforms, and the police simply and the law enforcement officers simply cannot monitor absolutely everything. You know, this is this is bot-driven, it is it's dislocated, you just don't know where the recruiters are based. So, which is why I think it was really important for a lady called Vicky Evans, who's the UK counter-terrorism coordinator for the Met Police, uh, to actually come out and state. She she did the information piece with the with the youth, say, if you do this, we will find you and we will prosecute you. And if we prosecute you under the National Security Act, you know, it's it's game over. You will difficulty getting jobs, you will difficulty having travel, certainly you'll never get to go to Disneyland and the States, you know, you'll none of that. You will not get any of those movements, and that is lifelong. So if you really think about what you're doing, because if we cannot find out who the people are in the middle layer, we know who the top layer are, if but if we can't find out who those recruiters are, then it's really important to make sure that the kids, the disaffected people, don't go and do this sort of this mugs game, as they said, of getting a few pounds because it'll ruin your life.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Can you talk a little bit more about that attempt, that attempted attack in Paris on the Bank of America building? I think you said one of the perpetrators seemed to think he was doing it to get back at someone's girlfriend or something. But it was reading about it was interesting because it could have been a pretty big attack if they executed. I guess it showed both the benefits and um downside of using kind of recruits who don't know what they're doing. They didn't pull off the attack, but they also still had plausible deniability. But it seemed like the it was what there were four people aged 21 to 16 who tried to pull this off.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I think the one they eventually arrested for it, you know, who was actually going to do it was a 17-year-old kid from Senegal who'd been promised 650 euros if he did this to gain revenge on this guy's girlfriend who'd been cheating. And then it sort of unravels for me because he was put parting incendiary or a device outside the Bank of America late one evening. Well, that doesn't work. How do you know what impact is that gonna have? So it just shows you people will believe that sort of thing if there's some money involved. And this money is transferred by crypto, we understand. You know, it's not going into the bank account, it's crypto, crypto wallets, etc. And that's you know a lot more complex to trace.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

What do you think Hayes or their their backers' longer-term goal is? Obviously, it's tied into the war. They want to show that they can reach people in Europe, but they also seem to be like particularly focused on London's Jewish community. I mean, I don't know how many attacks there have been in the last couple of weeks, but there's been a lot the last week, two men in a Jewish neighborhood were stabbed. I know it's still unclear, high claimed responsibility. I guess there's still a debate was is that true or are they just trying to propagandize it? But are they, in addition to just trying to be show that the Iranians can work in Europe as this war goes on, are they also trying to drive a sort of a wedge between Britain's Jewish community and the rest of the public? Because, you know, sometimes people, when they see these attacks, just want to get away from have whoever's being targeted as much as possible. And that that might be part of their aim.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

I think a lot of it is to, as you said, is to sh to sow anxiety, distrust, to sow division as well. And, you know, that is very easy to do when you have got members of the Jewish community in London now saying that next year they're gonna uh go for Aliyah and they're gonna move to Israel where they feel safe. And you know, my message to them is look, just hold tight just now. There's a lot, a lot of water to go under the bridge. The UK is now putting a lot of effort into um supporting the Jewish community, not just in London, but across the country. Um, you know, the the the finally the questions are being outed about anti-Semitism. People are now talking about it. They are now talking about, you know, the the well, yes, they're talking about how just horrific it is. But I now also feel that there is a commitment to to start to do something in the UK. And it's been it's long overdue. And one of the main efforts in this is the prescription of the IRGC and certainly of the cuts force, who are the ones who will perpetrate these or sort of certainly planned and revolt in these um ghastly attacks. And this is this is long overdue. Uh, long, long overdue in the UK. Um there are many debates as to why, and a lot of it's to do with sort of our our view, perhaps from the Commonwealth Office, um, to say that we have to be able to negotiate. Of course, because in Iran, as you know, if you are part of the IRGC, you know, you are part of it is military, but part of it is political and diplomatic. And also a huge part of that is the economic, the the military bonyads, um, who the investment organizations who control 60% of the of the Iranian economy. So you have to be able to engage with these people. So, in a paper I wrote recently for um one of the parliamentary organizations that said, look, if we can't go and do the whole thing, because you still want to engage, and rightly, let's go for the codes force. Let's go for one element who is the who is the part which is responsible for the overseas operations, as you saw all across the rest of the Middle East, and now into Europe. Let's go for them. Let's remove their ability to operate, let's also remove their support networks in the form of the the vast uh soft influence networks that you're seeing in UK, you know, mostly spread around the media organizations and various IRTV unit and Iraqi television radio and television unions in London, um, and finding out who these people are. Um, just today it's been released that there are a number of uh sons and daughters of regime leaders or regime sort of senior members of the IRGC who are living and operating in London. Well, we need to be able to find out who these people are, understand how they came into the country, what the status is. And if they are conducting activities which are not commensurate with, you know, with sort of our views and our standards of the UK, then something has to be done. I don't automatically, however, ascribe to the idea that you know the guilt of the child is that of the fathers. Um, absolutely not. And I think people do deserve that chance, but they need to be investigated, they need to be looked into. Um, you know, because some of them are doing jobs which are actually hugely beneficial to community in in medicine, in in law, in whatever. And should they be vilified because their father is a member of the IRGC, whatever level? Possibly not. But then again, it needs to be investigated to be looked at.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

I'm glad, Roger, that you talked about the UK response because you actually gave a bit more of a positive or optimistic, I would say, outlook or hopeful outlook than it seems when you see the these attacks taking place. And so I'm curious if you think, you know, it sounds like you think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you feel like they're going, they're getting on the right path or they're, they're they're starting to. Is it too late? Have they, do you think they've done enough? Are they waking up to this now? And what further steps do you think the British government and Europe more broadly should take to combat this type of asymmetrical warfare?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yes. I mean, firstly, I am hopeful. I am hopeful that finally the legislation will take place that will enable the government quickly to prescribe the IRGC. That is imperative. That must be.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Can I I want to interrupt you there for that, just so that our listeners understand? And what you mean is that the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has not been sanctioned as a terrorist organization in the UK. Is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

No, no, no, they have been sanctioned. There are elements that have been sanctioned. We've got sanctions with Unit 8400, Unit 9000. They have been sanctioned. But this is now the full prescription to anybody who is seen in support of this organization, attending marches, attending, you know, the spreading documentation, spreading their the, then the police can actually go and do something about it. They can arrest them, investigate them, and charge them accordingly. Without this legislation, it becomes an awful lot more difficult for the police to get a result. And it becomes a lengthy, lengthy process to go through. So what we want to try and do is have this prescription so that they are a banned organization and therefore the police are much more able to do something about the existential threat that they present to us in the UK. But part of that also has to be the um the sort of the other networks that go with it. By that, it's a soft influence piece. So also the institutions such as the Islamic Centre of England, which is the leader of that particular mosque, um, is allegedly placed there directly by the supreme leader. So he is a supreme leader's man in London, giving the theocratic and the sort of ideological support to people in London. And that's not what we need here. We don't need that in London. That is not necessary. I'm not saying that the Shia mosques should be prohibited, etc. But you know, the the fact that they have people in there, they have, they have, they will bring in sort of fresh imams from uh from Iran to go and and preach, to go and lead the ceremonies there. This doesn't need to happen because these people are far too ideologically aligned with the regime, and that doesn't really bode well for us here in the UK.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Is there much political pushback to prescribing the IRGC along the lines you just I think it's it's ingrained.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

We've always been the sort of a nation of sort of negotiators, and I think the dial has certainly shifted now. And in order to protect us, we need to make sure that we are aligned with the rest of the Five Eyes community and also with the Europe, um, and also have that prescription because the last thing we want to be seen is is a soft touch, allowing people into the UK. Um much has also been made of the you know the threat of illegal immigration and what and what will come on on the small boats. But I would look at it in a different way. The IRGC are not going to send their trained operatives, their trained guys to run the risk of a small boat. They'll find a way of getting a visa for them somehow, put in the community through a network of people that they have, and they'll do it on the legal route because they don't want to waste weeks or months for a guy trying to get from Tehran to London. They'll put them on a plane, fly him into Heathrow, get the visa stamped, take it from there. That's where they're going to come in. That's how they'll come in in due course, and that's the threat that it plays. Not in the illegal route. The illegal route will likely be used by people who are absolutely desperate to flee Iran, desperate to flee. You know, I might survive the trip to London, but I won't survive, you know, two months of living under the you know the regime in Tehran. So what are they gonna go for? They're gonna take that risk and they're gonna move to the UK illegally or through Europe illegally, run that risk, claim asylum when they get here, but they're they're the good guys, as it were. They're the they're the most the unfortunate ones who have been pushed into this position. It's the one who just hop on a plane, hop out the other end, and disappear into the community. They're the ones we have to worry about.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

I've noticed that the the high on online has been making some threats against the United States, against Trump, against his cabinet. Do you think? I mean, the way you describe it operating, it doesn't seem like it would be very hard for them to. Kind of train their sights on the US. Do you think they they want that fight?

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I think they would be very happy for it. I mean, you're in a nation that is awash with guns. You're able to, you know, if you're in the no-fly list, you can still have a gun. Um, when Masia Linajad, the judoka that went to attack and kill her, he had an AK-47 in the backseat of his car. You know, the the chap who uh attacked the Washington uh speakers uh dinner the other night. He had guns and he got them in on a train. Um you know it's it's it's quite easy to do it in your country in the states. You know, it's quite easy because the the criteria are already there, the the the tools are already there. You just have to find the willing mug who will go and do it. And you know, the motivators might be different in the states. The motivators you know will be financial, it might be attacking political people or other institutions in in um you know in the major city centres. I think attacking the president and his family um would be extraordinarily difficult. Uh, and although he's had several attempts of his life so far, they've all been fortunately unsuccessful. And um also they are being rather amateurish to push to that next level. It's becomes very obvious that it would be a state-backed terror threat and one that would then naturally, because you could directly prove it so it was linked to the state, then that would be a case of, well, that is uh you know, almost an Article V attack on the country, which potentially could uh invoke a NATO response. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole because that would take a huge one. But if you see what I'm saying, that you know that that's it changed the calculus that again, if it's a delivering the state back. So again, part of Hai's way is to be deniable, to obfuscate, to so it's not it's it's clear to people who are looking at it that this has got to be state-backed, but actually, from an evidential perspective, it's very difficult for the um law enforcement to prove that connection.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Roger, to what extent do you think that the activities of Hay encourage more extremism more broadly, right? Beyond the recruits, I mean. Do we see, for example, British youth online or elsewhere jumping on this bandwagon? And how ripe do you think college campuses are, certainly in the United States, for this kind of threat or this kind of extremism?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

So I think one of the things, it's a really interesting point you made, Alex, is this copycat lone wolf extremism that is really difficult for the law enforcement to deal with? You never quite know in this case where the threat's gonna come from, or who it's gonna come from, or what it will look like. Will it be a vehicle used as a weapon? Will it be a knife? Will it be a gun? Will it be multiple? Will it will it be an explosive device? You just have no idea. Is it gonna be perpetrated again or taking place against a Jewish community, a synagogue, a school? Again, you've got no idea, and it's really difficult in many of these cases on the lone wolf ones to do it because they are, you know, this this hay is a is a franchise of a proxy. It's been pulled together, been set up, it can be dropped at a moment's notice, but it still will there'll be people who will be inspired by it, who will take sort of take sort of support from it, uh, some sort of ideology, they will they will take something from this and look to do it themselves in a particular way. You know, it's very, very difficult to go to see. But at the end of the day, it could just be up, done, and dropped in a moment's notice. And that's one of the most dangerous things about it.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Roger, could you tell us you spent your years at Iran International. Yeah. And there were a number of Iranian government operations or believed to be one of the anchors was stabbed in London. I think there was plots to blow up their offices. I mean, it was a pretty intense situation. Could you just describe what you learned from how they operate? Because you have very first hand knowledge through your Iran international time.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I I wish I didn't have that knowledge. I really truly do. You know, it was an incredible privilege of working with some of the bravest set of journalists I I know who who, in the face of these horrendous, constant threats, not just to them, but to their families back in Iran, to see the way that they conducted themselves in a very professional manner, to see the way that they operated, the way that they did as good journalists do, is just get your head down and dig in and drive forward, um, was humbling, frankly. Um but yes, we dealt with um a number of late-stage kidnap uh assassination attempt or plots, which were fortunately filed by uh the Metropolitan Police. Um we dealt with a number of uh issues which would have been uh attempts to you know to put not too fine a point to blow our building up. Uh we had journalists who were constantly harassed, who were constantly under pressure. What I learned most of it is the IRGC is absolutely ruthless and in its attempt to complete its mission, which is the preservation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to keep that regime in power. That's what they want to go and do. And therefore, any form of dissent, uh, any form of people speaking out against the regime has to be put down, it has to be put down swiftly, has to be put down in many cases brutally, and home or abroad. And Iran International was very much a thorn in their side. So, as I said to you earlier, I had to keep my wits about me constantly. I had to be lucky. My team, my staff, my friends, my colleagues, they had to be lucky every single day and still do. Um, but the IRGC, through their network, through their proxies, through their gig economy guys, through all of those people who came to do harm, they only had to be lucky once. And that would have set the tone. We were very lucky in that we were very well supported uh by the Metropolitan Police who were with us by our sides throughout this entire time. And you know, it were not for them and the support they gave us, and that from the Home Office and UK government as a whole, um, to keep broadcasting going, to keep the um to keep the sort of the whole freedom of of the press alive in London. And we did it, and they did it, and the journals kept going, and they fought through it, and they they fought through all of the relocation to the states and the relocation back to the UK and all the different conditions that they had to operate under, all because this terrorist organization, the IRGC, were committed and still remain committed to seeing that channel suffer. I mean, you only have to look just recently. Um, there were statements by the Iranian judiciary to say that you know a number of journalists from UK channels, uh, Iran International and Manota TV, uh, were having their assets seized. And they had assets seized, they have accounts frozen, they have parents harassed. And this is the transnational repression, something that happens in Iran. It echoes throughout the entire family and diaspora across the world. And you they all hear about it, and it is something that is incredibly difficult to deal with, but it is something which is it is it is demonic in its in its way. It it really shatters internal will, it shatters cohesion. And some of them, I'm sure, will think up, think on a regular basis, I can't go on, I can't keep doing this to myself. I'm just gonna give up. But they don't. And this is this is an incredible thing about these Iranian journalists. They do not give up, they are relentless, they are committed to all of this, and it is staggeringly brave.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

It's so brave indeed. You know, I'm glad that you highlighted the how the extent to which the Iranian regime will fight tooth and nail. Uh, because that's really at the at the crux of this, right? That's the threat here. And they are, they adapt very quickly, as all terrorist groups do, by the way. I mean, that's the get the name of the game. They they evolve, they adapt to their new environments. Um, and you know what's so stunning about this group, Hai, is there have been so many attacks in such a short period of time that it's and it's so new. This is, and I used to, I like to think that, you know, given my that my former home, the Treasury Department, they're usually quite good about sanctioning, identifying and exposing these terrorist networks quite quickly. Hai is not yet sanctioned. Um, sure, I think their parent network might be sanctioned. And so I think I'm not worried necessarily about, for example, ways to get at their financial networks if they are findable or um or retrievable if they have intelligence on it. But it's not so much about that always. It's also about just exposing the behavior altogether and highlighting that threat to the broader public. And I wonder if you could comment on that because it's so the speed at which I'm not sure I've ever seen something develop so quickly. And like you said, they are amateur, but they only need to get lucky once. And it's not that hard in a country like the United States, like as you said, with access to guns. And you mentioned the imam that comes from that is, I guess, affiliated with the Ayatollah that in the UK. Well, I mean, I'm one, I don't know if in the US it would take effort to prevent something like that or target somebody like that because of our freedom of speech and freedom of religion. So that person would have to show direct ties to the IRGC, or they would have to show some kind of threat of inciting violence and such, and then they could get at it. But the point is that the risk, the abuse of our democracies is still there. So I know I've thrown a lot at you, but I just I really want to underscore the threat here of this group. What do you what can you say about that, about the speed at which they operate and whether our democracies are vulnerable to nourishing that threat further? He's holding a phone for everybody listening.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

With that, you could set this up in seconds. You could set up a telegram channel in a few seconds, you can start posting nonsense online, you create a bot, you chuck some requests into Grok, and Grok will throw you out a you know, a rough and ready Katayya Hezbollah style logo with some modern standard Arabic across the top and Quranic Arabic across the bottom, and it will give you something from the Surawaqia, you know, uh Ali Al-Yameen, Mainamah, I think it's a correct one, but al-Yameen can be substituted for it. Uh you know, when you do that and you create something which is has got the same sense, the same style, the same meter, the same lexicon, the same everything as the Islamic resistance, you can spin it up. It's a franchise model, it's a you know, like we have pop-up shops in malls. This is a pop-up terrorist group. The terrorist organization can move so quickly, and it is the West, and our desire to combat that. It takes time to develop and build the TTPs, the techniques, the tactics, procedures to deal with it. By which time they've moved on, two, three, four, five schedules. So we're still trying to keep the catch up. Finding it is is something that is incredibly difficult. And law enforcement will, you know, really have to look at their own methodologies and their own means of identifying and tracking potentially suspect or sort of at-risk individuals. But it's uh it's an unenviable task and it's an uphill task. And this will this is not going to go away. Um, this will not go away because the Iranians, the Iranian regime is in this for the long haul. Well we started off with people saying that this is will be over and done in a few days. Look what we did in Venezuela. This won't take long, this will be a couple of weeks. This is gonna be we destroyed this, we've destroyed that. Well, after the railway network was targeted, those bridges were back in action within 48 hours. They have had a chance now to rebuild some of their infrastructure. They've had a chance to rebuild some of their munitions capability. And this is an organization that through their mosaic defense, the fact that it's you know, they have the defense in depth, they have layer upon layer of commander who will step to the fore. And when you when you sort of lost your Aril Ali Larijanis and your people like Hussein Salami, etc., those guys have been replaced by your likes of Ahmed Vahidi, Musain Razai, uh Mohammed Ba'ul Qad. All of those guys were the ones who were in the room right at the very beginning of the genesis, of the outset of the creation of the IRGC. So when people have said, oh, we've changed the leadership, you've changed the leadership, but you've actually gone back to a very hard core uh of ideologically committed IRGC to the very end of days, unless we have a complete change of regime, an end to the Islamic Republic, and an introduction of an Iranian-led, not Western, we've made that mistake before, multiple times. There has to be an Iranian solution for a very Iranian problem. And I've heard many of my friends have said they look for a secular democracy in an Iranian style, however that may look, and that's for them to go and decide, also to support, but then to go. Only then will this long-term Hay and the future Hais threat diminish to a point that actually we can have a degree of peace in the region, but also um here in the West too.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

What do you think Hai ta tells us about sort of the evolution of terrorism and where we're headed in the future, whether it's coming from Iran or other sources in the world?

SPEAKER_01 37:25

I think it's redefining the model. I think it is it is completely rewriting the books here. And you know, as long as you've got something which you can sort of claim inspiration for, AI, technology, etc., can put this together for you very rapidly. And you know, it doesn't take long to go pick up a new phone, throw a new SIM card into it, create a Telegram account, create a Telegram channel, start advertising it out, and you will get your following, and you can do it through social media. Um, AI has a lot to play for it. People, you know, we all know that uh you know the US use a lot of AI for the targeting. We should not be surprised that our adversaries do exactly the same. And they're they are evolving, and they are evolving far more rapidly than we could expect. And maybe this is the you know, the turbocharged by AI. Turbocharged by whatever, and they're they're working so fast, and this is just, I think, going to get worse.

SPEAKER_02 38:28

Well, that's not an optimistic way to end it, but Roger Bill, thank you so much for joining the threat. We we really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

No worries, really nice to be John. Thank you so much for having me.