2 Iranian officials confirm Tehran preparing to target US diplomats, personnel – report
Following disclosure of US intelligence on stepped-up preparations, unnamed officials tell NY Times targets seen as 'fair game' because of US-Israeli assassinations
Two Iranian officials, one of them a Revolutionary Guards member, confirmed to The New York Times on Saturday that the Islamic Republic is preparing to target US diplomats and personnel, the newspaper said.
The unnamed officials US officials were seen as “fair game” given the number of Iranian officials and their relatives that the US and Israel have killed.
A US official was also quoted by the Times as saying there was evidence Tehran has operatives in the US who are “not just simply Iranian nationals.”
The Times report came days after US national intelligence chief Jay Clayton warned in a memo to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Iran has “substantially increased” its efforts to target US citizens in the Middle East and beyond.
Clayton’s memo emerged shortly after the State Department announced it was scaling back staff at the US embassies in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Earlier in the week, Washington also ordered nonessential US embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, following increasing attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Israeli intelligence in recent months has also indicated that Iran was seeking to target US and Israeli officials, according to several media reports.
The intelligence was reportedly why US President Donald Trump was smuggled aboard a catering plane out of a NATO summit in Turkey in July, and why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took off for the US that same month from an air force base rather than Ben Gurion Airport.
The US and Israel launched a joint bombing campaign on Iran on February 28 in a bid to destabilize the regime and destroy its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. The campaign killed dozens of senior Iranian officials, including supreme leader Ali Khamenei, whose son Mojtaba was appointed his successor.
Iran responded with deadly ballistic missile strikes on Israel and Arab US allies, and by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial conduit for oil shipments. The US launched its own blockade on Iranian shipping in April, days after the war entered a shaky ceasefire.
Peace talks between the US and Iran have stalled amid intermittent sparring over control of the Strait.
The Times reported on Wednesday that the US and Israel had drafted plans for resumed fighting after Israel’s Knesset election on Tuesday and the US midterm elections on November 3, to secure more leverage in negotiations on reopening the strait.