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Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack

Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack thumbnail

Iranian-backed militants are operating across the United States mostly unfettered, raising concerns in Congress and among regional experts that these “sleeper cell” agents are poised to launch a large-scale attack on the American homeland, according to testimony before lawmakers.

Iranian agents tied to the terror group Hezbollah have already been discovered in the United States plotting attacks, giving rise to fears that Tehran could order a strike inside America should tensions between the Trump administration and Islamic Republic reach a boiling point.

Intelligence officials and former White House officials confirmed to Congress on Tuesday that such an attack is not only plausible, but relatively easy for Iran to carry out at a time when the Trump administration is considering abandoning the landmark nuclear deal and reapplying sanctions on Tehran.

There is mounting evidence that Iran poses “a direct threat to the homeland,” according to Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and chair of its subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence.

A chief concern is “Iranian support for Hezbollah, which is active in the Middle East, Latin America, and here in the U.S., where Hezbollah operatives have been arrested for activities conducted in our own country,” King said, referring the recent arrest of two individuals plotting terror attacks in New York City and Michigan.

“Both individuals received significant weapons training from Hezbollah,” King said. “It is clear Hezbollah has the will and capability.”

After more than a decade of receiving intelligence briefs, King said he has concluded that “Hezbollah is probably the most experienced and professional terrorist organization in the world,” even more so than ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Asked if Iran could use Hezbollah to conduct strikes on the United States, a panel of experts including intelligence officials and former White House insiders responded in the affirmative.

“They are as good or better at explosive devices than ISIS, they are better at assassinations and developing assassination cells,” said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer who worked to counter Iranian influence in the region. “They’re better at targeting, better at looking at things,” and they can outsource attacks to Hezbollah.

“Hezbollah is smart,” Pregent said. “They’re very good at keeping their communications secure, keeping their operational security secure, and, again, from a high profile attack perspective, they’d be good at improvised explosive devices.”

Others testifying before Congress agreed with this assessment.

“The answer is absolutely. We do face a threat,” said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has long tracked Iran’s militant efforts. “Their networks are present in the Untied States.”

Iran is believed to have an auxiliary fighting force or around 200,000 militants spread across the Middle East, according to Nader Uskowi, a onetime policy adviser to U.S. Central Command and current visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

At least 50 to 60 thousand of these militants are “battle tested” in Syria and elsewhere.

“It doesn’t take many of them to penetrate this country and be a major threat,” Uskowi said. “They can pose a major threat to our homeland.”

While Iran is currently more motivated to use its proxies such as Hezbollah regionally for attacks against Israel or U.S. forces, “those sleeper cells” positioned in the United States could be used to orchestrate an attack, according to Brian Katulis, a former member of the White House National Security Council under President Bill Clinton.

“The potential is there, but the movement’s center of focus is in the region,” said Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Among the most pressing threats to the U.S. homeland is Hezbollah’s deep penetration throughout Latin America, where it finances its terror activities by teaming up with drug cartels and crime syndicates.

“Iran’s proxy terror networks in Latin America are run by Tehran’s wholly owned Lebanese franchise Hezbollah,” according to Ottolenghi. “These networks are equal part crime and terror” and have the ability to provide funding and logistics to militant fighters.

“Their presence in Latin America must be viewed as a forward operating base against America’s interest in the region and the homeland itself,” he said.

These Hezbollah operatives exploit loopholes in the U.S. immigration system to enter America under the guise of legitimate business.

Operatives working for Hezbollah and Iran use the United States “as a staging ground for trade-based and real estate-based money laundering.” They “come in through the front door with a legitimate passport and a credible business cover story,” Ottolenghi said.

The matter is further complicated by Iran’s presence in Syria, where it has established not only operating bases, but also weapons factories that have fueled Hezbollah’s and Hamas’s war on Israel.

Iran’s development of advanced ballistic missile and rocket technology—which has continued virtually unimpeded since the nuclear deal was enacted—has benefitted terror groups such as Hezbollah.

“Iran is increasing Hezbollah’s capability to target Israel with more advanced and precision guided rockets and missiles,” according to Pregent. “These missiles are being developed in Syria under the protection of Syrian and Russian air defense networks.”

In Iraq, Iranian forces “have access to U.S. funds and equipment in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and Iraq’s Ministry of Interior,” Pregent said.

The Trump administration has offered tough talk on Iran, but failed to take adequate action to dismantle its terror networks across the Middle East, as well as in Latin American and the United States itself, according to CAP’s Katulis.

“The Trump administration has talked a good game and has had strong rhetoric, but I would categorize its approach vis-à-vis Iran as one of passive appeasement,” said Katulis. “We simply have not shown up in a meaningful way.”

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60 Comments on "Iranian-Backed ‘Sleeper Cell’ Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack"

  1. joe on Sun, 19th Aug 2018 8:59 am 

    Turkey is in real trouble. Idlib holds almost the entire islamist army that the west created, funded and proxy trained in terrorism. Maybe 1,000,000 people will flood turkey when Assad tells his tiger divisions to get sovereign UN recognised Syrian land back. These scumbags in Idlib will be passed straight to the EU border. Iran was not the cause of this. They didn’t send billions of dollars to ‘train and equip’ al qeada in Syria, they only went to fight them (somthing the US has failed to do). I knew the US was the creator of isis when the Kurds had em cornered like rats in Raqqa and the US ordered the YPG to stand down and allow isis to leave to dier ezzor with their weapons. Allot o’s Saudi oil money has been spent on keeping Wahabbis in this fight, the US acts as a garuntor of Saudi military safety, in exchange for the petrodollar. Iran will be attacked by American planes mark these words, because it’s what Saudi wants its what Israel wants, and the deep state will make up any excuse to do it, just like they did in old soviet Russia. Iran doesn’t have a hope. Not unless that is Putin is a real man and finds the kohones to back Iran the way he did Syria. The Saudi strategy for the world is simple, begining with Europe, infiltration, undermining moral (using the rhetoric of the left and equality/multiculturalism), tease populations away from Christian belief towards atheism and family planning, then expand and control (using civil rights and restoritive justice programmes), then one day to announce their arrival by taking a symbolic target (probobly Rome or London or maybe Vienna as the Turks failed to do)

    My belief is that the deep state in America uses its vast power to aid Saudi Wahabbis in this fantasy because they don’t care, as long as Saudi only sells oil in dollars.

  2. Cloggie on Sun, 19th Aug 2018 9:53 am 

    Astonishing realism with joe… all the terrorist attacks in Europe were Sunni. Iranians operate on a higher level then Sunnis. Yes it looks as if Assad is going to clear Idlib.

    If the US attacks Iran, 20 million bpd Gulf oil will be stranded, causing great economic harm to Europe and China.

    https://russia-insider.com/en/economic-war-iran-war-eurasia-integration/ri24476

    “Those clamoring for war with Iran cannot possibly understand that the nightmare scenario of a Strait of Hormuz/Persian Gulf energy transit closure – the choke point for 22 million barrels of oil a day – would represent, ultimately, the death of the petrodollar.”

    Perhaps in a last minute decission, South Stream will be built after all to compensate for the supply loss.

    #LastDaysOfEmpire

  3. MASTERMIND on Sun, 19th Aug 2018 10:09 am 

    Clogg

    Russia insider? You are a fucking moron..Russia doesn’t even have a free press..they are like China and North Korea..

    You are the biggest bootlicker to the elites like the worlds richest man Putin.

    Europe is collapsing, just look at Italy..You have been duped into thinking there is a migration crisis that doesn’t exist..

  4. fmr-paultard on Sun, 19th Aug 2018 10:49 am 

    my belowed dear tard big brotehr joe. why u tarding so hard. it must be the water u drinking. u told me assad is protecting christians when i told u in syria churches steples are required by law to be lower than mosque minarets. you also tarding when you say shia taquira is good. oh my brother joe please i pray you tardless everyday. god willing ergodan will get dumber and dumber until we reclaim constantinople brother joe. i love you, i don’t hate you, i hate the tarding in you only

  5. Cloggie on Sun, 19th Aug 2018 10:51 am 

    Free press, free press, oh you mean jewish-owned press that denounces Trump and white people in general 24/7? No, you don’t have that in Russia. Btw, Russia-insider is not Russian, but written by Anglos sympathetic to Russia.

    Europe isn’t collapsing at all but dementing fools like you have great trouble discerning between a bridge and a country, eh, sad f*ck? Perhaps time for new Trotsky glasses? I’m sure your nose is long enough to park a second vision protheses on it.lol

  6. MASTERMIND on Sun, 19th Aug 2018 11:28 am 

    CLog

    OECD GDP

    https://imgur.com/a/y3dtUEX

    OECD GDP 2028 0.0 > Economic collapse

    Source: World Bank
    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locati

  7. Cloggie on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 4:26 am 

    Millimind, the Ghawar oil field total historic reserves were 0.16 trillion barrel

    Over the past six years the shale oil industry + IEA + US Geological Survey “discovered” (extrapolated) 3.5 trillion new barrels of oil reserves.

    https://www.google.nl/amp/s/oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Exxons-Shocking-Supply-And-Demand-Predictions.amp.html

    That is 20 NEW GHAWARS in a few years time.
    Scroll down halfway page.

    But please millimind, don’t let that stop you committing suicide as you claimed you intended to do.

  8. MASTERMIND on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 9:48 am 

    CLogg

    Shale can’t make up for all the entire world’s declining conventional supplies on its own..20 Ghawars come on dude? Are you really that stupid?

    Chevron CEO warns US shale oil alone cannot meet the world’s growing demand for crude
    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/01/us-shale-cannot-meet-the-worlds-growing-oil-demand-chevron-ceo-warns.html

    All That New Shale Oil May Not Be Enough as Big Discoveries Drop
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-27/all-that-new-shale-oil-may-not-be-enough-as-big-discoveries-drop

  9. MASTERMIND on Tue, 21st Aug 2018 9:53 am 

    CLogg

    If that unverified claim made by exxon were true..Oil would be back to its 20th century average of 20 dollars a barrel..Its triple that price now..What does that mean? That oil has gone scarce, and first it goes scarce, and then it starts to run out..

    World Oil Shortages To Lead To Oil Price Spike By 2020s, warns Goldman Sachs
    http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Supply-Crunch-To-Lead-To-Oil-Price-Spike-By-2020s-Expert-Says.html

    HSBC Global Bank: 81% of world liquids production already in decline and world oil shortages ahead
    https://www.scribd.com/document/367688629/HSBC-Peak-Oil-Report-2017

    UBS Global Bank warns of industry slowdown and world Oil Shortages by 2020
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/12136886/Oil-slowdown-to-trigger-supply-crisis-by-2020-warns-bank.html

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