Podcast Summary: The Watch Floor with Sarah Adams

Episode: How Iran Could Attack The U.S. From Inside
Date: February 18, 2026
Host: Sarah Adams

Episode Overview

In this episode, former CIA Targeter Sarah Adams exposes the little-known IRGC Unit 840—a highly covert arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—which specializes in operations worldwide, including on U.S. soil. Adams explains the structure, leadership, methods, partnerships, and tradecraft of Unit 840, illustrating how Iran’s state-sponsored covert action blends with criminal and proxy fields to threaten foreign targets. The episode’s main focus is making sense of how Unit 840 plans, adapts, and survives in global covert warfare and why its activities inside the U.S. warrant urgent attention.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. IRGC: Iran’s “State Within a State”

• Structure:

  • Iran has two military arms: the traditional military (Artesh) for territorial defense, and the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) for regime protection and external operations.
  • The IRGC is “like a state within a state—it has its own intelligence service, its own economy, its own foreign policy tools.” (02:00)
  • External operations are conducted by the IRGC’s Quds Force, and even more clandestine actions fall under Unit 840.

• Comparison to U.S. model:

  • “It would be like if you took the CIA and JSOC and rolled their operations together as one.” (03:00)

2. Leadership and Organizational Setup

• Aliases and Leadership:
  • Most operatives use aliases, complicating attribution—“Even when you learn their names, you’re likely not learning their true given birth name in Iran because everything is an alias.” (04:30)
• Key Figures:
  • Founder: Mohammad Reza Shalahi
  • Current Leader: Mohammed Jafar Shalahi (his son), now based in Yemen—”His son…is currently based there and running the whole organization out of Yemen.” (05:30)
• Unique reporting lines:
  • Unit 840 reports both to the Quds Force and to the IRGC Intelligence Organization (IRGC IO).

3. How Unit 840 Operates—Tradecraft and Adaptation

Adaptive Methods per Region:

• Syria:

  • Recruits local Syrians to command operations—a smart move for deniability:
    • “It’s the Syrian commanders who absorb the risk…. You’re not going to assume the Syrian is linked to the Iranian regime.” (07:15)

• Lebanon:

  • Embedded an Iranian commander within Hezbollah in Tyre.
  • Even after the commander was killed, cell structure redundancy maintained operations.
    • “You can’t just cut off one head in this situation.” (08:45)

• European Operations:

  • Germany: Targeting a dissident Iranian rapper, Shaheen Najafi, using recruited locals and intermediaries to mask Iranian involvement (10:00).
  • Turkey & Europe: Uses criminal organizations for logistics, surveillance and weapons movement, leveraging their plausible deniability—"If you pick up this criminal...it sounds like a conspiracy theory and Iran is taking advantage of how absurd that sounds." (12:30)
  • London 2025 Plot: Four Iranians (not locals) plotting against the Israeli embassy were apprehended, revealing the risk of using direct nationals rather than proxies. (13:45)

• Asia (Thailand, Georgia, India):

  • Uses proxies (e.g., local organizations) to target Israeli interests; leverages local actors rather than Iranians for leadership (11:30).

Key Tactics and Infrastructure:

• Insiders—Operational effectiveness hinges on the recruitment of insiders close to targets, both institutions and individuals (15:30).
• Compartmentation—Operatives often don’t know all players in a plot to prevent roll-ups of the entire network if one is caught (16:20).
• False Identities as Infrastructure—Extensive use of fake documentation and identity for logistics, finance, and safe movement (17:00).
• Criminal Cutouts—Outsourcing parts of operations to criminal groups reduces risk and increases deniability (18:00).
• Patience as a Weapon—Long-term infiltration and slow development of operations form a key IRGC strategy (19:00).

4. Key Missions and Objectives

• Primary Goals:
  • Targeted assassinations
  • Kidnappings and renditions of Iranian dissidents
  • Sabotage
  • Support for proxy groups (training, weapons, logistics) (14:30)
• Tradecraft illustrated through a real-life case:
  • The assassination of Afghan General Ekwamuddin Sari (20:00)
    • Joint Iran-Taliban operation using a former Afghan officer to infiltrate Sari’s inner circle over months before executing the plot.
    • Showcases patience, insider access, cross-border collaboration, and strict operational compartmentation.

5. Partners, Proxies, and Networks

• Partners:
  • Taliban, Hezbollah (Lebanon and Iraq), Houthis (Yemen)—“They have a lot of different affiliates they can reach out to and leverage.” (23:00)
  • Also works closely with Al Qaeda affiliates, organized crime, and trafficking networks.
• Resilience and survivability:
  • “This network is really not built for efficiency...It’s built for survivability and it’s mostly built to be invisible.” (24:00)
  • Redundancy in cell structures and quick replacement of disrupted elements make Unit 840 hard to dismantle.

6. Implications for U.S. Security

• Invisible Presence:
  • “We don’t really talk about this organization in the United States even though it operates here. You know, that’s really scary. That means it’s not like it’s silent because they’re not here. It’s silent because we’re not disrupting that operational activity.” (24:45)
  • Urgent need for vigilance given Unit 840’s proven ability to adapt, hide, and outlast disruption worldwide.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On IRGC’s unique status:
  • “You have to look at the IRGC as like a state within a state. It has its own intelligence service, its own economy, its own foreign policy tools.” (02:00)
• How they maintain deniability:
  • “They get a criminal organization to support their operations and...if that criminal element gets picked up, first off, they’re not Iranian. Second, they’re not tied in any way to the Iranian regime.” (12:00)
• On the London plot that failed:
  • “If they went back and replanned it, they probably would have used four locals who weren’t of Iranian descent because that piece probably made them more exposed and we quickly knew who they belonged to.” (14:00)
• On infiltration patience:
  • “Patience as a weapon. This is kind of one of their benchmark pieces of tradecraft.” (19:00)
• On their resilience:
  • “It’s very difficult to fully stop all 840 operations....they had the backup in place to replenish that pretty quickly.” (24:10)
• On the U.S. threat:
  • “We don’t really talk about this organization in the United States even though it operates here…that’s really scary.” (24:45)

Key Timestamps

• 00:25 – Episode Introduction: The IRGC and Unit 840 overview
• 02:00 – IRGC’s autonomy and structure
• 05:30 – Unit 840 leadership and aliases
• 07:15 – Tradecraft in Syria vs. Lebanon
• 10:00 – Operations in Europe: Germany example
• 12:30 – Use of criminal intermediaries in Turkey and Europe
• 14:30 – Core mission types: assassinations, kidnappings, sabotage, proxy support
• 16:20 – Compartmentation in planning
• 19:00 – Patience in assassination operations; General Ekwamuddin Sari case
• 23:00 – Partners and affiliates—global reach
• 24:00 – Resilience, survivability, and invisibility
• 24:45 – The reality and risks of 840’s activities in the U.S.

Summary Conclusion

Sarah Adams delivers a thorough, sobering analysis of IRGC Unit 840, highlighting its unique blend of military, intelligence, criminal, and proxy methods. Unit 840’s true danger lies in its adaptability, deep networks, and operational patience—making it a resilient global threat, including on American soil. Adams’ breakdown makes clear that understanding and countering such organizations requires thinking beyond traditional models of state-sponsored terror and focusing on the hybrid, deniable, and compartmented tactics that define modern covert war.