Senior FBI and Homeland Security officials hosted conference calls with some of the nation’s governors and top law enforcement officials on Sunday to discuss how the U.S. missile strikes in Iran impact an already dangerous threat environment, sources told ABC News.
The calls included one with hundreds of state and local law enforcement officials from around the country and another with state governors and their staff.
An FBI official said on the call that the agency’s “posture is going to be enhanced” after the U.S. military action against Iran. The FBI is asking more personnel to be in the office, and continuing to “canvas sources” and monitor intelligence.
Sources said there is currently no specific intelligence of a direct, credible threat against the U.S. homeland. The call with governors was meant to ensure that states are aware of the current threat environment and to encourage them to reach out to relevant state agencies, infrastructure partners and others who may be at risk, sources said.
Federal officials specifically urged governors and their staff on the call to be vigilant for an uptick in cyber activity within their states and encouraged them to reach out to relevant state agencies, private sector infrastructure partners, and others who may be at risk, including Jewish institutions or groups associated with Israel.
The call with law enforcement also included a representative from the Secure Community Network (SCN), a Chicago-based organization that helps protect Jewish institutions across the country and shares intelligence with the FBI and DHS.
SCN’s national director and CEO, Michael Masters, said on the call that the decision by the U.S. government to join Israel’s military campaign against Iran “opens up a new chapter for all of us,” and that Jewish institutions and Jewish leaders within the U.S. “should be considered at an elevated risk” for retaliatory violence.
He said that in the hours right after the U.S. launched its strikes, SCN identified more than 1,600 “violent posts directed to the Jewish community on social media.” A number that he said continues to grow.
Expressing concern over what Iran might do in response to the U.S. military action, Masters said, “Historically, as many of us know, the intelligence community has determined that Iran would not strike in the U.S. unless a red line was crossed. …The so-called red line of the Iranian response doctrine was crossed.”
And Jim Dunlap, the deputy secretary for analysis at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, said the U.S. strike against Iran “raises the threat environment here in the United States.” But he also said that, “from a terrorism perspective, we assess that Tehran’s retaliatory efforts against the homeland are probably dependent upon the extent to which it believes U.S. actions threaten the regime’s stability.”
“We have not yet observed the Iranians call for direct violence in the homeland,” he added, though he said DHS is “closely” monitoring for “specific calls to violence and threats against the homeland.”
Without offering specifics, Dunlap said that “recent law enforcement disruptions” in the U.S. “could challenge Iran’s ability to execute a plot in the homeland in the immediate term.”
The calls come after Homeland Security issued a bulletin calling on the public to report anything suspicious to officials with DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stating flatly that what’s happening in Iran brings the potential for increased threats to the homeland in the form of “possible cyberattacks, acts of violence and antisemitic hate crimes.”
All state governors were invited to the call, but not all were able to make it for various reasons, so for some only their staff members attended, sources said.
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