As the Israeli military conducts a long-range conflict with Iran and President Donald Trump considers whether to commit U.S. forces to a more active role against the Tehran regime, the administration is also intensifying its focus on threats closer to home.
Under FBI Director Kash Patel, federal agents are increasingly alert to the possibility of sleeper cells—operatives who remain inactive within a target country until activated—carrying out attacks inside the United States, CBS News reported Thursday.
An analyst specializing in Iran told reporters this could represent the struggling Islamic Republic’s final desperate move.
“The very fact now that the Iranian regime is volatile, it’s targeted, and it’s highly vulnerable — that’s what actually makes it increasingly dangerous to the West, in that it has nothing to lose it has this about this sense of nihilism, and it affects the rational calculus,” Barak Seener, research fellow with the conservative, U.K.-based Henry Jackson Society, told reporters during a conference call Wednesday, according to the New York Post.
The FBI is concentrating its efforts on sleeper cells connected to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, according to CBS. Hezbollah has long been targeted by Israeli intelligence—including last fall’s high-profile pager bombing operation—but it also maintains sleeper cells in the West, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mike Nelson told NewsNation in a report published Friday.
Nelson suggested that some Hezbollah operatives may have entered the United States via Venezuela—the same country linked to the Tren de Aragua gang, which exploited the U.S. open border during the Biden administration to establish operations in American cities.
“It seems likely [Hezbollah and Iran] would try to activate sleeper cells in the United States as retaliation if the U.S. joins in the strikes, so it would be prudent for the FBI to be monitoring,” Nelson said, according to NewsNation.
“The Iranian regime wants this to end with them in power, and their primary concern is survival. They do not want the United States to be involved … If they think we are going to get involved, then, one of their options is to attempt asymmetric attacks on the United States. In other words, activating stateside sleeper cells,” Nelson added.
