Sleeper cells: threat of Iranian attacks in US ‘has never been higher’
The threat of attacks by Iranian sleeper cells inside the United States has “never been higher”, officials said, after Tehran warned it would activate agents if President Trump bombed its nuclear sites.
The Iranians are believed to have sent a message to US diplomats during the G7 meeting in Canada last week, raising the threat of terrorist attacks on American soil in retaliation for any military intervention.
Trump left the meeting a day early, returning to the White House to plan his response to the conflict in the Middle East. On Saturday night seven B-2 stealth bombers, using 30,000lb bunker-busting bombs, struck nuclear sites in Iran. Other warplanes and submarine-launched tomahawk cruise missiles were also used in the attack.
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The Department of Homeland Security warned in a statement after the raids that the “Iran conflict is causing a heightened threat environment in the United States”. The department said there could be an increased possibility of terrorist attacks in the US, especially “if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the homeland”.
AdvertisementIt also warned of less lethal measures the Iranians could use, such as cyberattacks on American networks and companies.
In a post on social media after the US airstrikes, Trump said “Any retaliation by Iran against the United States of America will be met with force far greater than what was witnessed tonight.”
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, in a televised speech from a bunker during Israeli air raids last week. He has previously issued lurid threats against America
THE MEGA AGENCY
Amid growing concern, the Customs and Border Protection agency said at the weekend that Iranians were among those that have illegally entered the country in recent years.
Rodney Scott, the CBP commissioner, said in a memo on Saturday that “though we have not received any specific credible threats to share with you all currently, the threat of sleeper cells or sympathisers acting on their own or at the behest of Iran has never been higher”.
The memo urged CBP personnel to remain vigilant. It said: “Thousands of Iranian nationals have been documented entering the United States illegally and countless more were likely in the known and unknown got-a-ways.”
AdvertisementDays after the presidential election in November, the US brought charges over an alleged plot by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to assassinate Trump. The charges detailed allegations that Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan national, had been ordered by Tehran on October 7 to devise a plan to kill the president.
Weapons seized from suspects who were accused of planning to assassinate Trump at Iran’s behest
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Tehran has been eager to avenge the killing, ordered by Trump in January 2020, of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force and the mastermind of Iran’s regional expansion. Soleimani was killed near Baghdad airport in a US drone strike.
The Iranians are known to have plotted attacks in the US against other targets. In recent years, prosecutors have charged suspects with plotting to kill John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, and the Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad. Both have been strong critics of the theocratic regime in Tehran.
JD Vance, the vice-president, told US news networks on Sunday that the White House was monitoring the possibility of attacks inside America “very closely”. He blamed the previous administration for allowing millions of migrants to enter the US. “We know that some of those people were on terrorism watch lists,” he said.