Are Iranian 'sleeper cells' a threat to Canadians? Here’s what intelligence experts say

The U.S.-Israel war with Iran has stoked fears that Tehran could activate dormant agents abroad to execute terror plots.

"I believe there’s sleeper cells all over the world," Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a press conference on March 10. "As we know, they’re in the U.S. They’re in Canada."

According to U.S. media reports, American officials have intercepted encrypted communication believed to have come from Iran that could act as an "operational trigger" to activate "sleeper assets."

Days after the war began, Qatari authorities announced the arrest of 10 suspects allegedly assigned to spy on "vital and military facilities" in the Gulf nation for the Iranian regime.

But counterterrorism experts say the threat of Iranian sleeper cells is largely overstated.

Sleeper cells are understood to be groups of covert agents who remain embedded within a population until they are directed to act — an idea that "often evokes the image of a Russian spy or terrorist living next door, laying low, blending in and waiting to be called upon to carry out an operation," writes Shannon Nash, a counterterrorism expert who has studied the topic extensively.

"This concept, and the fear of an enemy operating from within, is particularly jarring and plays on society’s perception of security."

Anxiety around sleeper cells tends to resurface whenever tensions escalate between the U.S. and Iran. But one Canadian security expert says their deployment is not the modus operandi of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Canada.

"They don't use them," said Dan Stanton, director of the national security program at the University of Ottawa's Professional Development Institute.

Stanton, who worked with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) for more than 30 years, says the actual threat lies in Tehran's use of local criminal networks for targeted intimidation and violence.

"They don't use sleeper cells in that sense of deep cover agents. They use what we would call criminal proxies. These are people that would do surveillance, harass people or try to kill people."

Public figures, both in government positions and in the diaspora, who are critical of the Iranian regime are often subject to targeted campaigns or plots against their life.

Among them is former Canadian justice minister and outspoken critic of the Iranian regime Irwin Cotler. In 2024, the RCMP informed Cotler that they had foiled a plot by agents of Iran to kill him.

In a statement to CBC, CSIS wrote that the intelligence agency works closely with "foreign partners and domestic law enforcement" to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies.