August 15, 2025

SHARE |

Could Iran Seek to Attack the U.S. Homeland?

AP Photo/Hassan Ammar

Late last month, the United States, the United Kingdom, and a dozen other Western nations jointly condemned what they said was the growing threat posed by Iranian intelligence agents planning covert activities on Western soil. The statement read: “We are united in our opposition to the attempts of Iranian intelligence services to kill, kidnap, and harass people in Europe and North America in clear violation of our sovereignty.” The list of targets included current and former government officials in North America and Europe, Jewish citizens and journalists, and political dissidents. Iranian agents were seeking to employ the use of criminal organizations to carry out these attacks, similar to the murder-for-hire plot targeting an Iranian-American journalist at her home in Brooklyn, New York, in July 2022. The use of proxies to attack Western and Jewish targets and an increase in transnational repression by Iran are expected in the coming months ahead as Tehran seeks to exact revenge for the “12-Day War” waged by Israel and the United States’ strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Over the past 20 months, groups in the Axis of Resistance, a loose coalition of Iranian-backed terrorist proxies, have been significantly attenuated by Israeli attacks — including Lebanese Hezbollah, which maintains a worldwide footprint of terrorist cells. After the United States became directly engaged in the conflict with Iran, Tehran threatened to activate this network to conduct attacks in the West. In the lead-up to and in the aftermath of U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear program in late June, FBI Director Kash Patel increased efforts to monitor possible domestic sleeper cells linked to Hezbollah, operating at the behest of Iran, in the United States. A Department of Homeland Security National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin update, published on June 22, warned of a “heightened threat environment” in the U.S., including cyber-attacks against U.S. networks and violent extremists mobilizing to violence.

Following U.S. strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran launched ballistic missiles at Al-Udeid, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, located in Doha, Qatar. Following the strikes, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to X and posted, “The fact that the Islamic Republic has access to key U.S. centers in the region and can take action whenever it deems necessary is a significant matter. Such an action can be repeated in the future too. Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price.” In the days prior to the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran sent a private message to U.S. President Donald Trump warning that, if the U.S. followed through on planned strikes (which it later did), Iran would respond by unleashing terrorist attacks on U.S. soil conducted by sleeper cells operating inside the country.

Now that Iran has been humiliated in the so-called “12-Day War” with Iran, a war in which the United States played a direct kinetic role, it increases the likelihood that Tehran will resort to its comparative advantage of using its proxy forces to attempt an attack on Israel, the United States, and/or Israeli or U.S. interests abroad, as has occurred previously with the Iran-backed attacks in Argentina in 1992 and 1994; the Khobar Towers attack in 1996; and the Burgas bus bombing in Bulgaria in 2012. In fact, these are just the attacks that succeeded; the list of foiled plots is longer and adheres to a global footprint. Iran and its proxies have conducted surveillance operations against Jewish targets in Cyprus, India, and Nigeria. The Iranians maintain numerous options in how they might seek to pursue such an attack—operatives already based on U.S. soil; outsourcing to a criminal organization; or seeking to inspire violent extremists in the U.S. who share Tehran’s worldview or remain sympathetic to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, or any of Iran’s other proxy groups.

Over the years, Iran has made numerous direct threats against the United States and U.S. officials, and in some cases has moved forward with plots to assassinate high-ranking Americans, including the President, although these plots have been foiled. The goal is to intimidate the United States into changing its policies, withdrawing from the Middle East, and in some cases, exacting revenge. These threats ramped up following the targeted assassination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. Following that incident, Ayatollah Khamenei posted on his social media account, “Those who ordered the murder of General Soleimani as well as those who carried this out should be punished…This revenge will certainly happen at the right time.” More recently, following the U.S. targeting of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Khamenei made direct threats of retaliation to include Iranian proxies conducting attacks on U.S. soil.

In 2011, the United States disrupted an IRGC-QF plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., using a Mexican drug cartel as a proxy. The Iranian plot also included bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Additionally, bomb attacks against the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed as part of the broader plot. In 2017, two men were arrested in the United States for terrorist activities on behalf of Hezbollah and were charged with conducting surveillance of potential targets in the country, including military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.

Over the course of 2022-2023, there were multiple foiled plots against U.S. officials, including former Trump administration officials John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, with linkages back to Iran. In the case of Bolton, an Iranian national and member of the IRGC was charged in an August 2022 Department of Justice complaint with the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire plot and with providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot. In May 2023, a New Jersey resident was sentenced to 12 years in prison for receiving military-style training from Hezbollah while also scouting a long list of potential targets in New York City, including the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, the Empire State Building, myriad transportation infrastructure, and even the United Nations headquarters. In November 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice announced federal charges against Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national residing in Tehran, for engaging in an IRGC-orchestrated plot to assassinate President Trump.

Both the Bolton and Trump plots are believed to be related to the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the IRGC-QF and architect of the Axis of Resistance. According to an investigation by Reuters, since 2020, there have been nearly three dozen assassination or abduction attempts in the West in which local or Israeli authorities alleged a link to Iran. In 2022, IRGC-linked cyber units targeted U.S. infrastructure, including military-related servers, in campaigns that were designed to disrupt or surveil U.S. military planning.

The combination of Iran’s intent and its repeated plots and attempts to assassinate high-ranking U.S. government officials is indicative of Tehran’s objectives. It is unlikely that Iran will simply cease targeting U.S. officials, military installations, or intelligence assets in the United States until its leaders feel that they have avenged the death of Soleimani and/or responded to the recent U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Attacking targets on U.S. soil would align well with Iran’s broader strategy, particularly as part of its approach to utilize proxies, which comprise the Axis of Resistance; however, it would open Iran up to an overwhelming U.S. response, which would likely seek to destroy the regime as it exists today, plunging the country into chaos.