Mohamed Fahmy: Iranian sleeper cells are activating, and Canada is a target |
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Mohamed Fahmy: Iranian sleeper cells are activating, and Canada is a target
This country has been a haven IRGC members
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At least five U.S. diplomatic missions have recently been targeted in Iranian retaliatory strikes across the Middle East. With no definitive time frame on the end of the war, embassies are now being targeted beyond the region as well. The latest apparent incident occurred in Toronto, where unknown assailants fired shots at the U.S. consulate early Tuesday — an act the prime minister has condemned as intimidation.
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The attack being investigated as a “national security incident” comes a day after an improvised device placed at the building’s entrance caused explosion outside the U.S. embassy in Oslo, Norway, on Sunday.
Mohamed Fahmy: Iranian sleeper cells are activating, and Canada is a target Back to video
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At a moment when Canadians inside and outside the country are searching for answers — and reassurance — the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said the threat level in Canada from Iran or its proxies has not changed since the war began nearly two weeks ago, though threat-related activity is “likely to continue.”
“The level remains at ‘Medium,’ meaning that a violent extremist attack remains a realistic possibility,” a Canadian Security Intelligence Service spokesperson said in a statement to CTV News Tuesday night.
The emerging view is that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has activated longtime sleeper cells and escalated their attacks in an unprecedented manner to spread fear and send a message to both their critics abroad.
On March 9, U.S. federal authorities issued a high-level alert to law enforcement warning of potential Iranian cells operating on American soil. Intelligence officials say encrypted communications believed to have originated in Iran may serve as an “operational trigger” for sleeper assets abroad.
The alert cites preliminary signals analysis of a transmission relayed across multiple countries shortly after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a U.S.–Israeli strike on Feb. 28 — raising fears that dormant networks tied to Tehran could be activated far beyond the Middle East.
Iranian drones — the hallmark weapon of this war — were used to strike U.S. embassies in several of Iran’s neighboring countries. The drones were mostly launched from Iran by the IRGC, the country’s multi-service elite military force, which Canada designated as a terrorist organization in 2024 citing the group’s role in promoting terrorism, human rights violations, and potential, active operations within Canada.
Last November in a rare and candid speech, Dan Rogers, director of the CISS, sounded the alarm on Iranian government cells operating inside Canada. For the first time, he confirmed that Canadian intelligence has actively stepped in to protect Tehran’s critics on Canadian soil.
“Over the past year, we’ve had to reprioritize operations to counter Iranian intelligence services and their proxies, who target anyone they perceive as a threat to the regime,” Rogers warned.
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During my years reporting in the Middle East, many Iranians shared harrowing accounts of crimes committed by the IRGC, a pattern documented by numerous human rights groups and the European Union who have labelled the force a terrorist organization for its violent repression. The IRGC bestowed with a mandate — after the 1979 Islamic Revolution — to crush “deviant movements” harmful to the revolution’s ideological legacy has been instrumental in preserving the clerical regime’s power for 47 years.
The expanding reach of the IRGC in Canada is deeply alarming. Hours after the attack on the U.S. consulate in Toronto, Iranian-Canadian journalist Negar Mojtahedi — who has investigated the group extensively — informed me that the warning signs have been visible for years, yet the urgency of the threat is only now beginning to register.
“Based on my reporting and conversations with members of the Iranian community in Canada, there is widespread concern that the Islamic Republic — and networks linked to the IRGC — continue to operate in ways that intimidate and silence critics abroad. Many Iranian Canadians who speak out against the regime report harassment, threats, and intimidation directed either at them directly or at family members still inside Iran. In some cases, individuals say they have been contacted online or through intermediaries warning them to stop their activism. Others describe monitoring at protests or community events, ” said Mojtahedi.
Last week, gunfire ripped through a boxing gym owned by an Iranian-Canadian activist and outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic near Toronto. While no one was hurt, the attack sends a chilling message — stoking fears of intimidation against dissidents here in Canada.
Mojtahedi, reporting for Iran International and documenting these threats on her Eye for Iran podcast series, further explained to me: “The result is a climate of fear. Much of transnational repression is psychological, designed to intimidate and terrify even beyond the regime’s borders. The Iranian government has a long record of extending its reach abroad to monitor, harass, or target dissidents. While this pattern is not unique to Canada — similar concerns have been documented across Europe and the United States — Canada’s large Iranian diaspora makes the threat particularly acute here.”
Among the duties of the current head of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi — who leads a battle hardened force of more than 200,000 — is the task of exporting Iran’s Islamic Revolution across globally and through the Middle East through a network of armed proxies.
Toby Dershowitz, senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, DC, has been tracking the IRGC’s transnational operations for decades. She explained in her conversation with me following the U.S. alert about potential activation of Iranian sleeper cells consulates how the IRGC exports terror abroad. As an example, she cited how the late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman may have been likely killed in 2015 in connection to his work on the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in which 85 people were killed.
“The Islamic Republic has, since its founding, exported its radical revolution through force and terror, including the deliberate pre-positioning of sleeper cells across the globe. This is part of its doctrine. Iranian law literally mandates the export of the revolution, and sleeper networks are among its most patient weapons,” Dershowitz said.
“The late Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who investigated how the Islamic Republic recruited and radicalized local populations, documented this in granular detail, showing how Iran and Hezbollah systematically embedded operatives across Latin America, building networks that lay dormant, until the clerical regime sought their activation. Nisman’s investigation traced the strategy to a 1982 Tehran seminar of nearly 400 clerics from 70 countries. It served as the original blueprint for exporting the revolution through mosques, cultural centres, and embassies across the hemisphere. He later identified active Iranian intelligence networks in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago, pre-positioned and ready to be activated on Tehran’s order.”
The recent convictions of two men for plotting to assassinate IranianAmerican journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad at her New York home are a rare but crucial victory against Tehran’s long reach. This 2022 plot follows a 2021 scheme to abduct her by speedboat to Venezuela, highlighting the persistent threats dissidents face abroad.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has long cultivated and armed a network of proxy militias across the Middle East, providing training, funding, weapons, and strategic direction to groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi movement—efforts that have significantly shaped regional conflicts and security dynamics.
During the ongoing conflict, dozens of IRGC officers — primarily Quds Force advisers to Hezbollah — fled Lebanon in early March 2026, driven by Israeli strikes and a Lebanese government ban on their activities. Reports indicate roughly 50 to 150 personnel, including commanders, diplomats, and their families, returned to Iran, underscoring the regime’s growing vulnerability.
As the conflict in Sudan escalates into its third year, the civil war — largely underreported in the media — has become marked by worsening violence and stands as one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.
On March 16 US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on his X account:
“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, trained and supported by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has been designated by @StateDept as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated and Specially Designated Global Terrorist for mass execution of civilians. We will continue to use all available tools to deprive the Iranian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources they need to engage in or support terrorism.”
As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran nears two weeks, Canada is under fire for failing to deport suspected senior IRGC operatives, with Conservative MPs criticizing officials for concealing their identities at hearings. Brett Bush, director-general of immigration and asylum policy at the Canada Border Services Agency, admitted that no Iranians linked to the regime can currently be removed due to the lack of flights to Iran — leaving the country exposed while the conflict rages abroad.
Tuesday night night, shortly after the shooting at the U.S. embassy in Toronto and as the war in the Middle East intensified — leaving thousands dead and many Canadians desperate to flee — Canada’s Prime Minister made a decisive statement amid mixed messages from Washington and no clear direction from President Donald Trump:
“Canada’s stance is clear. Canada supports the necessity of preventing Iran’s nuclear program and the export of terrorism. Canada is not participating in the United States and Israeli offensive and will never participate in it.”
Ottawa is once again trying to hold the stick from the middle. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said Wednesday that Canada will join other countries in condemning Iran’s retaliatory strikes across the Persian Gulf and will co-sponsor a resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling the attacks “completely unacceptable.” Yet the government continues to insist Canada is not participating in the U.S.–Israeli offensive against Iran — attempting to stand with allies while carefully avoiding the consequences of that stance.
Numerous people I have interviewed recently had one question one question on their mind: how and why were members of the IRGC ever allowed entry into this country?
Mohamed Fahmy is an award-winning journalist who has covered the Middle East for numerous outlets, including CNN, Al-Jazeera the Los Angeles Times and Foreign Policy.
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