Iran-targeted journalist reacts to UK crackdown on IRGC: “Best day of my life since I was stabbed”

When British Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati first heard about the UK’s official plans to block support for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier this week, it gave her a sense of relief she hadn’t felt in years.

“It was the happiest day of my life since I was stabbed,” he said. Zeraati’s main concern was never the jail time given to Romanians convicted of their role in his 2024 attack. To him, they were just paid mercenaries.

“In order to deal with this threat, we need to fight its cause, its root, which is the Iranian regime and especially the IRGC,” Zeraati told CBS News. “This is a major step that gives law enforcement greater powers to track, monitor, and fight the main source of the threat, which is in Tehran. Not in Eastern Europe and all the other proxies working for the regime.”

After being approved by both houses of the UK Parliament, the IRGC on Friday was among three government-backed groups designated as a “threat to national security.” The appointment was quickly followed by the outgoing administration of Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Under these new powers, it is now a criminal offense in the UK to provide support or assistance to the IRGC, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, putting it on the same level as supporting designated terrorist organizations in the UK. Acts of vandalism committed in the name of the party may be punishable by life imprisonment.

Zeraati and the threats facing Iranian journalists

Persian-speaking journalists in the West and their relatives back home in Iran have long been victims of intimidation and intimidation by the Iranian regime.

As a top TV anchor for Iran International, a network openly critical of the Islamic Republic and sympathetic to pro-monarchy opponents, Zeraati was no stranger to threats to his life.

His face appeared on billboards in Iran, with rare captions accusing him of being a child killer. One poster of him and his colleagues at Iran International was emblazoned with the words, “Wanted: Dead or Alive.” The regime’s hostility towards Iran International has led to it being called a terrorist in Iran.

In February 2022, in response to “credible and immediate threats” to the network’s staff, London’s Metropolitan Police installed concrete barriers outside Iran International’s London studios while maintaining a round-the-clock armed presence on the site. Within a year, the station was forced to cease operations in the UK and temporarily relocate to Washington, DC.

But one afternoon in March 2024, as Zeraati walked from his home in south London to his car, another threat loomed.

Two men appeared, one stopped him from behind and the other showed a knife and stabbed him three times in the thigh. The two men fled the scene in a waiting car, driven by a third man, before the trio sped off in the UK

Zeraati was left seriously injured, bleeding and in need of emergency treatment.

Less than a week after the attack, Zeraati was back at work at the Iran International studios in London.

“Yes, the aim was to silence me, first of all. But it didn’t work because, since that day, I’m very determined to continue what I’m doing,” said Zeraati. He is now putting his schedule on hold, living outside the UK, out of concern for his safety.

The stabbing was the culmination of months of planning and surveillance, according to British prosecutors. At least one of the suspects had guarded Zeraati’s property last year. Mobile phone and communications data showed repeated communications between the suspects and a third party. There was also financial evidence that the day-to-day expenses of the defendants were financed through third party accounts.

Earlier this month, two Romanian men, Nandito Badea and George Stana, received sentences of 12 and eight years respectively, for their role in the Zeraati attack.

The judge agreed with British prosecutors that this was a state-sponsored attack and that the evidence overwhelmingly pointed to the Iranian regime’s intentions.

A third man remains in Romania, facing domestic crime charges in that country, according to British police.

Iran’s hostile work on US roads

In the year to October 2025, the UK’s domestic spy agency, MI5, has identified at least 20 Iran-linked plots against UK citizens.

Those plots – and other attacks against the Jewish community – were the driving factors in the UK government’s decision this week to designate the IRGC.

Closely allied to the military, the IRGC is thought to answer directly to Iran’s supreme leader and is among the state’s security services. With a long history of targeting dissidents and other perceived enemies abroad, the IRGC’s Quds Force is dedicated to targeting operations abroad – such as the one targeting Zeraati.

Along with sanctioning the IRGC, the UK also banned a shadowy former group known as the Islamic Companions of the Right (IMCR). CBS News previously reported how the group sought to attack the UK and other European areas tied to Jewish communities, including a high-profile attack on four ambulances in London belonging to the Jewish medical organization United Hatzalah.

Regarding the ambulance attack, the director of the group’s Telegram account told CBS News that it was done at night to avoid harming people but warned that IMCR’s approach could change. In announcing the order this week, the British government now believes the IMCR was likely targeted by members of the IRGC’s Quds Force.

Appointment doubt

The United States designated the IRGC in its entirety as a foreign terrorist organization in 2019, the first time a country’s organization has been so designated. Canada did so in 2024, and the European Union did so in February this year.

But the appointment has become a contentious issue in UK political circles due to concerns about the impact on British-Iranian diplomatic relations, given the IRGC’s central position in Iran. The UK Foreign Office reportedly fears that Britain’s ambassador to Iran will be expelled if that decision happens, effectively closing a key line of communication between the two governments, according to The Guardian.

Neil Basu, former head of UK Counter Terrorism Policingsees the UK’s move now as “a totemic act that is good for politics at home and with international partners.”

“We’re not worried about the political ramifications of shutting down a regime that may have stopped it earlier,” Basu told CBS News, while stressing that the new crime cited in the article will help law enforcement deal with “a new way of recruiting petty criminals.”

Those who would be recruited would be deterred because of the severity of the punishment and because it was no longer “an ordinary matter for the police,” according to Basu.

“It is a national security priority for the (UK) government and Counter Terrorism Policing … (supported by) highly effective intelligence agencies all working more closely together than ever before,” he said. “You stand a good chance of getting caught, which any criminologist would agree is the best deterrent.”

Zeraati agreed that the deterrent might work.

“With or without this appointment, I don’t think the work of the IRGC will change… But I think the question is now more towards the proxies,” Zeraati said. “I think this decision will make criminals (think twice) whether they want to cooperate with this government or not.”

As for whether he now feels safe enough to return to the UK, Zeraati expressed great optimism.

“This is the first step, and I think it will lead to a safer UK. And as soon as I see myself – in terms of the threat of foreign oppression – I live in the UK safely, I will not hesitate to go back,” he said.