United States spy agencies reveal a possible terrorist attack on the US. Iran, due to a perceived threat from the West, is prepared to launch an attack on US soil. The spy agency report highlights areas of risk due to the Obama administration continues to put pressure on Tehran. The administration is escalating pressure in an attempt to stop it from creating an atomic bomb.
Intelligence officials feel that there is no real threat to the United States. In a congressional testimony, officials expressed that Iran recently crossed a threshold in being an adversary against the United States. Although Iran has been blamed for attacks on American oversees, officials believe that the attempted assassination of the Saudi ambassador in Washington last year has troubling significance.
James R. Clapper Jr., the Director of National Intelligence, says that the thwarted plot “shows that some Iranian officials – probably including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei – have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime.”
Clapper submitted a written testimony to Congress on Tuesday that included a warning about a more aggressive stance Iran was planning to take. This was done during the intelligence community’s annual assessment of the most impending threats on security throughout the nation.
According to US intelligence officials, the al-Qaeda group has been degraded over the past few months and not showing any immediate threat. However, during the assessment, a concern for the Chinese cyber-espionage was expressed. North Korea being nuclear-armed during the transition of leadership and uncertainty of Afghanistan after the departure of United States troops were also a topic of discussion during this meeting.
However, regardless of the many other concerns, CIA Director David H. Petraeus, Clapper and other US intelligence officials spent a significant portion of time discussing the many questions dealing with Iran.
The country has nuclear ambitions that Washington is keeping a close eye on. It has always posed as a underlying concern, but with the new developments a higher sense of urgency has been revealed. Despite the lack of obvious attacks, the US feels that conflict has already started. Intelligence reports suggest that Iran is planning a series of assassinations, explosions and computer attacks, and are very close to completing the development of the bomb.
Iran claims that all of its nuclear developments are an effort to produce a better energy system, and only have peaceful reasons in mind for its efforts.
