PM Rishi Sunak faced mounting calls tonight to class Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation following the massive attack on Israel.
Figures across the political spectrum have urged him to make the move in the wake of Tehran’s assault last weekend using 300 missiles and drones.
Demands to follow the lead set by America came from ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman, former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and the Labour Party.
Israel pledged to launch its first direct attack on Iran — whose leaders vowed to hit back with a blizzard of more than 3,000 missiles and drones if it did.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is thought to have 125,000 military personnel and is in charge of the country’s ballistic missiles.
Ms Braverman said the PM should put the UK’s national security first by making the organisation a proscribed terrorist group.
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She said: “We have known for years the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism, funding and promoting terrorist plots, radicalisation and hostage-taking both in the Middle East and at home.
“We have proscribed Hezbollah, we have proscribed Hamas, Prime Minister, why don’t we put the UK’s national security first by now proscribing the IRGC?”
Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the move would help ensure Iran could no longer ferment extremism in the UK. He added: “All roads lead back to Tehran when it comes to the terrible violence and the wars that take place in the Middle East.”
Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey said the case for proscribing the IRGC had been fought for over a year.
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Meanwhile, Mr Sunak is demanding Israel shows restraint in response to Iran’s attack to try to stop the Middle East conflict spiralling out of control.
The Prime Minister called out Tehran for its “reckless and dangerous escalation” describing its missile blitz as the work of a “despotic regime”.
He said he would be speaking to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, as he demanded: “All sides must show restraint.”
Speaking to MPs in the Commons, he said if the attacks on Israel had been successful, the fallout for regional stability would be “hard to overstate”. The Iranian blitz involved 110 ballistic missiles, 36 cruise missiles and 185 drones.
Despite the assault’s scale, only one person was seriously injured. She was seven-year-old Arab girl Amina al-Hasoni, who suffered a head injury when rocket debris fell through her bedroom ceiling.
Her distraught father, Muhammad, 49, branded the attack “inhumane” and raged at the Irianian regime: “May God demolish them.”
WW3 FEARS
Mr Netanyahu and his war cabinet are still fine-tuning their strikeback plan.
But fears of World War Three were spiralling as Iran warned any Israeli attack would be met with a response ten times bigger than its opening salvo.
The threat raised the spectre of the war being joined by Iran’s Lebanese terrorist arm Hezbollah, which has a stockpile of 120,000 missiles on Israel’s doorstep.
A joint attack would be likely to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome and David’s Sling rocket defences — even with US and British warplanes in support.
US and RAF jet fighters with allied aircraft from France and Jordan were yesterday revealed to have knocked out 80 drones and at least six missiles in the attack.
PLEAD FOR RESTRAINT
Israeli sources said the nation’s war cabinet had decided to hit back “clearly and forcefully”, but will meet again today before signing off on a plan.
Britain and the US were among the Western nations pleading for restraint as concern grew that superpowers could be sucked into a wider conflict.
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Mr Netanyahu has been urged not to respond at all by chief ally, US President Joe Biden.
But Donald Trump — who will stand for re-election in November — vowed he would “make Iran pay”.
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Nick Parker
