The Trump administration has warned of Iranian “sleeper cells” operating in America as the United States braces for Tehran’s response to strikes on three of its nuclear sites over the weekend.
Sleeper cells generally refer to foreign agents who lie low, going about their seemingly normal daily life, until called on to carry out a mission or attack.
NBC News reported that Iran sent a communique to President Trump in the days before the strikes threatening sleeper-cell terrorist attacks inside the U.S. in retaliation.
Former national security and defense officials say the threat should be taken seriously, even if it’s less likely than other forms of Iranian retaliation.
“Look, they operate that way, not just in the United States, but around the world,” former Defense secretary and CIA chief Leon Panetta told CNN earlier this week. “That’s something that Iran is very capable of and has shown that it can do that in other areas.”
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark told MSNBC he believed Iranian agents in the U.S. could “self-activate” in response to American bombings, potentially seeking to murder certain officials or blow up the electric grid.
However, he said there was a “low probability” of such attacks, and that an Iran-linked militia attacking U.S. troops in the Middle East was more likely.
Javed Ali, a former counterterrorism director at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, said Iran had little to gain from any direct attacks on the U.S.
“I don’t think we’re in a threat window where Iran is going to respond against the United States anywhere. I just think it would be completely counterproductive to the position that they’re in,” he said, citing the fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown professor and former executive of the RAND Corporation, said cyberattacks linked to Iran were an “omnipresent threat … that probably has become sharpened in the past week,” while a lone wolf attack was the “preeminent threat.”
The Department of Homeland Security warned Sunday that American networks could face low-level cyberattacks by either Tehran-affiliated or pro-Iran independent hackers. Iran-aligned hackers took credit for an attack over the weekend on Truth Social, Trump’s social media network. --->READ MORE HERE
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Experts warn Iranian operatives could be leveraging anti-Israel protests after Biden's border policies enabled terrorist entry
As the threat of Iranian retaliation looms, the potential for terror proxies to leverage new-age methods remains front of mind for experts pointing to antisemitic campus protests and social media propaganda as possible methods of creating chaos within the United States.
After strikes on Iran’s key nuclear sites by U.S. forces Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin warning of the heightened risk of domestic terrorism from Iranian-backed or domestic attackers.
"The likelihood of violent extremists in the Homeland independently mobilizing to violence in response to the conflict would likely increase if Iranian leadership issued a religious ruling calling for retaliatory violence against targets in the Homeland," the bulletin says.
Sleeper cells are groups planted within a country by a foreign government to live and work among citizens with the ultimate goal of eventually carrying out a terror attack or politically motivated act of violence.
Due to depleted funding and resources, terror organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas have been forced to "sit this one out" when it comes to aiding Iran in its attacks, significantly depleting the regime’s show of force when looking to retaliate against the U.S. and Israel, according to Barak Seener, a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.
"Iran’s ability to react militarily is increasingly minimalized," Seener told Fox News Digital. "We have to remember that Iran’s terrorist proxies have been severely degraded."
In response to the loss of Iran’s usual terrorist proxies, Seener points to the government utilizing sleeper cells to carry out its agenda on the soil of its adversaries.
"Iran will be seeking to flex by activating sleeper cells in the U.S., Britain, Europe or even Asia," Seener said. "[It’s] about conducting surveillance and then targeting either community centers or policy officials. So, Iran is not new to this game."
The threat to Americans’ safety has U.S. officials on high alert, and DHS and the FBI are ramping up security measures throughout the country. Since the bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 11 Iranian nationals in the country illegally, including an alleged sniper in the Iranian army, according to DHS.
"It is our duty to keep the nation safe and informed, especially during times of conflict," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict brings the possibility of increased threat to the homeland in the form of possible cyberattacks, acts of violence and antisemitic hate crimes."
The FBI declined Fox News Digital's request for comment. --->READ MORE HEREFOLLOW LINK BELOW TO A RELEVANT STORY:
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