ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A UK court on Friday handed a 20-year sentence to Johannes Kongsnes Natland, 19, who traveled from Norway to the UK in March 2025 to carry out an assassination following payment and orders from a criminal organization backed by Tehran.
Natland agreed to shoot an unknown victim for €25,000 after having been recruited by the Foxtrot Network, a Swedish organized crime organization with links to the Iranian government. He was found guilty of conspiracy to murder after a trial earlier this year.
“Natland was arrested just hours before he was due to carry out an assassination here in the UK" and "was clearly being tasked by someone in the Foxtrot Network, an organized criminal group sanctioned by the UK and the US due to its involvement in orchestrating violence against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe on behalf of the Iranian regime," read a statement by London Counter Terrorism Policing Commander head Helen Flanagan.
“One of the tactics increasingly used by foreign states seeking to cause harm to the UK is the use of criminal proxies... who often recruit people online with promises of significant financial reward,” he stated.
The US and UK have both sanctioned the Foxtrot Network on account of these close links to the Iranian government.
According to the US State Department, the Iranian regime uses the Swedish-based gang “to carry out attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets in Europe.” It is estimated that Foxtrot Network has been responsible for approximately 35 murders on Israeli targets in Europe since 2022.
The network was behind the attempted attack on the Israeli Embassy in Stockholm in January 2024. The embassy’s staff notified police after discovering what was believed to be a hand grenade that had been lobbed over its fence.
The group’s main leader, Rawa Majid, known colloquially as the “Kurdish Fox,” was born in Kermanshah, Iran, to parents who fled to Sweden during the Iran-Iraq war. According to Swedish broadcaster SVT, Majiid has been operating remotely from Tehran, having fled there in 2023.
Natland’s sentencing comes two weeks after the events of the late September incident at the Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford station used by US forces during the US-Iran war. UK Prime Minister, Andy Burnham had said that the reported terrorist threat was “almost certainly" orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). UK Police officers arrested five British nationals at the scene and one 22-year-old British-Iranian national.
Iran has unequivocally denied involvement with this incident.
Today’s verdict reflects a further recognition of Iran’s ability to leverage criminal organizations to further its aims within European borders while also maintaining plausible deniability.
Tehran affiliated accounts on X and state media have not commented on Natland’s sentencing.
“The intended target of this specific assassination has never been identified, and we found no evidence of any direct link to Iran in this case," the CTP statement read. "However, as recent events have shown, CTP will seek to proactively disrupt any attempts by hostile states to carry out criminal acts in the UK."
As Natland’s target remains unknown, it is not yet possible to tell if the Iran-backed network that recruited the teenager intended for criminal or politically motivated assassination on UK soil.
A number of individuals have also been detained in the Kurdistan Region over their links to Foxtrot.
Kurdish security Security forces in January arrested a 21-year-old senior figure during a joint intelligence operation in the Region’s eastern Sulaimani province. Other figures, including a 27-year-old, were arrested in Erbil in 2025.
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