Iran’s leaders seem prepared to attack U.S. interests overseas, particularly if they feel threatened by possible U.S. action. In other words if they feel like we’re really up to something they are going to strike us. click below to find out more.
@WiLMajor
Al-Qaida is in decline around the world but is still a leading threat to the United States, joined by others like Iran, the top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday in an annual report to Congress on threats facing America.
Indeed, that threat from Iran could extend to the United States homeland.
Citing last year’s thwarted Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, “some Iranian officials — probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei … are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime,” Clapper said. “We are also concerned about Iranian plotting against U.S. or allied interests overseas.â€
But Clapper, CIA chief David Petraeus and others reasserted their stance that Iran is not building nuclear weapons, in contrast to Israeli officials’ statements that Iran could have nuclear capability within a year. Petraeus said he met with the head of Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, last week to discuss Israel’s concerns, but he did not say whether Israel agreed with the U.S. assessment that Iran had not yet decided to make a nuclear weapon.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last week that Iran is proceeding toward nuclear weapons capability and time is “urgently running out.”
Al-Qaida and Iran are part of a mosaic of interconnected enemies the U.S. faces, including terrorists, criminals and foreign powers, who may try to strike via nuclear weapons or cyberspace, Clapper and the others said.
Al-Qaida still aspires to strike the U.S., but it will likely have to go for “smaller, simpler attacks” as its ranks are thinned by continued pressure from U.S. drone strikes and special operations raids since Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of Navy SEALs in Pakistan last year, Clapper predicted.
“When you take one two and three out in a single year,” that weakens the force, added Petraeus. The CIA chief pointed out that “four of the top 20 in a single week were captured or killed,” last year, leaving the leadership struggling to replace itself.
The intelligence chiefs predicted al-Qaida’s regional affiliates will try to pick up the slack for the beleaguered core group in Pakistan — from the Yemeni offshoot al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to Somalia’s al-Shabaab. If they can’t reach the U.S. homeland, they’ll try to attack western targets in their geographic areas, they said, and the Yemeni branch of al-Qaida remains the most likely affiliate to try to attack the U.S. homeland.
