The Washington Post, 31 Jan 2012 – U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Iran is prepared to launch terrorist attacks inside the United States in response to perceived threats from America and its allies, the U.S. spy chief said Tuesday.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in prepared testimony that an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington that was uncovered last year reflects an aggressive new willingness within the upper ranks of the Islamist republic to authorize attacks against the United States.
Clapper said in the testimony, the United States is entering a critical transitional phase for the terrorist threat, in which smaller-bore strikes from regional nodes are more likely than elaborate, mass-casualty plots.
If the pressure on al-Qaeda can be maintained, there is a better-than-even chance that decentralization will lead to fragmentation, Clapper said. The terrorist group will seek to execute smaller, simpler plots to demonstrate relevance to the global jihad.
The groups affiliate in Yemen continues to be seen as the most likely source of plots targeting the United States.
But the death of U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a CIA drone strike in Yemen last year has at least temporarily eroded the affiliates ability to mount international attacks.
The indications of al-Qaeda’s declining potency were offset by the grim new concern about the potential for terror attacks from Iran.
In October, U.S. officials accused Iran of being behind the disrupted plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. The convoluted scheme was to rely on assassins from a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the killing at a restaurant in Washington.
U.S. officials said the plot was devised by an Iranian American with ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. But the plan was foiled when the Iranian American mistakenly hired a paid informant of the Drug Enforcement Administration to carry it out. Iranian officials have denied any role in the plot.
At the time, Obama administration officials said they were unclear on how high up in the Iranian leadership there had been officials approving the plan.
Clappers reference to Khamenei marks the first time U.S. officials have mentioned Iran’s supreme leader in connection with the plot, signaling new belief that the alleged willingness to authorize such attacks comes directly from the top.
The view of U.S. intelligence agencies on Iran’s nuclear intentions has not shifted since last year. Clapper said that Iran still appears to be keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, but that we do not know what the republic will decide.
Iran has blamed the United States and Israel for a series of mysterious developments, including the apparently targeted killing of yet another Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran on Jan. 11, as well as a crippling cyber attack on the country’s largest uranium enrichment facility.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama raised the threat of military intervention to halt Iran’s alleged pursuit of an atomic bomb, saying he would take no options off the table to achieve that goal.
But the administration insists that it has refrained from violent measures so far. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denied any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran.