Female Spy Lurking Against Iran; Who Is the New Head of MI6?

While almost the entirety of the UK’s political, economic, and military power is concentrated on the war with Russia and the battlefield in Ukraine, the country's intelligence apparatus is witnessing significant developments that must be particularly noted by the Iranian government and people. In the last days of Tir month (mid-June 2025), Starmer, the British Prime Minister, appointed Blaise Metreweli as the new chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6).

Metreweli will succeed Sir Richard Moore from early autumn of this year. David Lammy, the British Foreign Secretary, to whom Metreweli will report, as well as Sir Moore, both welcomed and supported this selection.

The crucial point about Metreweli is not that she is the first woman to lead the 116-year-old British intelligence agency, but rather that this woman has specifically focused on issues related to Iran for nearly two decades in the field of operations.

She was stationed for at least five years (2000 to 2005) in the Persian Gulf region, especially at the MI6 base in the British Embassy in the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi and Dubai).

Familiarity with Persian and English Languages

Metreweli completed her undergraduate studies in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in 1998. She is fluent in Arabic, and some sources mention her proficiency in Persian, though mainstream sources have not referenced this expertise.

She worked for some time in the counterintelligence department in hostile countries within the British domestic intelligence service (MI5) and, from early 2025, headed the Technology and Innovation Directorate at MI6 (the Q Branch).

Overall, Metreweli can be described as an anthropologist fluent in the language and culture of the Persian Gulf region (especially Iran) with outstanding capabilities in encryption, decryption, and cybersecurity. These qualities, alongside her operational experience in espionage and counterintelligence, make her a multidimensional intelligence officer and manager who is explicitly tasked with focusing the British intelligence agency on Iran.

A Combination of Operational Focus and Strategic Command

Metreweli is known in academic and governmental circles for her deep expertise concerning Middle Eastern issues, especially Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf countries.

She has earned this reputation by combining operational intelligence activity with the design of security strategies and has spent much of her career stationed in various British embassies in the Levant, the Persian Gulf, and North Africa.

During this period, she strengthened her record focusing on the following issues:

She has led covert operations related to Iran’s nuclear supply and preparation network.

She developed counterintelligence strategies against Iranian-backed cyber threats targeting the United Kingdom’s infrastructure, advised the British Foreign Office on sensitive Persian Gulf matters, and analyzed Iranian diplomatic signal transactions in the region. Additionally, she designed and implemented countermeasures against Iranian government-level infiltration and sabotage operations throughout the Middle East.

Some sources claim that she maintains close ties with the intelligence apparatus of the Zionist regime and has been directly involved in covert operations carried out by Israel using cyber tools such as Pegasus and Palantir inside Iran and Lebanon.

During her tenure at MI5, the British domestic intelligence service, Metreweli gained particular expertise in counterintelligence strategies and tactics. Subsequently, in alignment with the UK’s presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, she directly led operations that in various forms related to Iranian activities in the region. Her long-term deployment in Dubai serves as evidence of this claim.

Iran at the Center of the UK Intelligence Apparatus’ New Outlook

Blaise Metreweli adopts a pragmatic and aggressive approach, preferring disruptive and preemptive actions over reactive and restrictive policies. For this reason, she is especially popular among security officials in Washington, Tel Aviv, and Paris.

Throughout her career, she has closely cooperated with American, French, German, and of course Israeli security agents and managers in the Persian Gulf region.

Despite the UK’s deep entanglement in Europe, particularly in the war NATO is conducting against Russia in Ukraine, the Starmer government insists on focusing a significant part of its foreign intelligence capacity on Iran.

The current geopolitical environment in the region is highly tense. The direct aggression of the Zionist regime against Iran has significantly exacerbated the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of Western energy security.

Meanwhile, Iran’s resistance against this aggression and the extensive measures taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran after the war to strengthen its soft and hard power resources have caused the main European supporter of the Zionists to find itself in a significantly weakened position vis-à-vis present-day Iran.

Moreover, the competition between the U.S. and the UK over involvement in Iranian affairs has forced the UK to adopt new decisions.

It appears that with the appointment of this intelligence officer, who is proficient in regional affairs, a strategic redirection has been placed on the agenda of the Starmer government.

The UK seeks to replace a global holistic approach with a regionally focused strategy and to delegate a fully operational and forward-looking program to its foreign intelligence service.

This program will likely include the following:

Enhancing covert and multi-layered operational capabilities in the Middle East region, with a focus on the Persian Gulf.

Increasing emphasis on human intelligence (HUMINT) related to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxy forces throughout the region.

Strengthening cooperation and coordination with American, French, and Israeli intelligence agencies.

Intensifying surveillance and monitoring of all potential threatening activities by Tehran in both regional and extraregional contexts.

Among the lesser-known aspects of Metreweli’s activities is her connection to the journalistic community. Although official sources provide limited information on this matter, she was contemporaneous at Cambridge with Labi Iris, one of the editors of The Telegraph in London. Considering Metreweli’s expertise in psychological operations, it can be said that the press is one of the most important tools she has used and will continue to use to manipulate public opinion and conduct cognitive operations.

What Should We Expect?

Considering these points, it can be anticipated that the UK’s foreign intelligence apparatus will carry out its activities under Metreweli’s supervision focused on the following areas: