The shaky ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump between Israel and Iran has not stopped federal officials from continuing to closely monitor any threats stemming from the conflict in the Middle East, federal officials told CNN.
Security and intelligence officials are not currently tracking any credible threat to the US but have issued several warnings over the potential for lone wolf and cyber-attacks stemming from the conflict.
At the FBI, senior leaders are in the process of pulling agents away from assisting the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration enforcement mission so they can return to their focus on guarding against counter terrorism threats.
A ceasefire “doesn’t mean we take our foot off the gas,” said one federal law enforcement source. “History has shown (the Iranians) are not the most credible regime. Our work continues.”
The FBI began temporarily scaling back its support for Trump’s immigration ambitions, a move to ensure agents are focusing on any potential threats to the homeland stemming from US strikes on Iran, CNN reported Monday. While the final number of agents to be reassigned has not been determined, sources said some field offices could see a drastic reduction in personnel working on immigration efforts.
In a statement to CNN, the FBI would not comment directly on the changes but said they are continuously assessing and realigning “our resources to respond to the most pressing threats to our national security and to ensure the safety of the American people.”
FBI veterans say the new potential for retaliatory attacks by Iranian affiliates will require a concerted focus by bureau investigators.
“One of the things that the FBI has to be doing right now is going backwards and looking at every subject of every investigation, closed or open, who had any sort of connections to the government of Iran,” said Andrew McCabe, a former FBI deputy director and CNN senior law enforcement analyst. “All of those cases have to be scrubbed. All of the informants that were feeding those cases have to be regenerated. They’ve got to start collecting current intelligence on what any of those people might be doing now.”
In a similar vein, US cybersecurity officials are currently reviewing the long history of Iranian hacking activity targeting American businesses and government agencies for reminders on how Tehran might respond now, a US official familiar with the matter told CNN.
One reason the FBI attention is needed on the potential threats from Iran, sources said, is the hybrid nature of the way Iran has targeted the US homeland in the past.
The Department of Homeland Security has issued several warnings that Iran could target US officials – which officials say the country has been doing since the US killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.
Iran’s intelligence services sometimes use hacking to supplement their surveillance of dissidents or former US officials on US soil. A former confidant of ex-Trump national security adviser John Bolton, for example, was hacked in 2022 in a possible effort to track Bolton as part of an assassination plot.
Hours before Trump announced the ceasefire on Monday evening, FBI Director Kash Patel told an audience of local law enforcement officials that the agency’s current focus was “on protecting the homeland.”
“Right now, the focus – given the nature especially of what just happened – has to be on protecting the homeland and protecting our communities,” Patel told the National Sheriff’s Association.
On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters – speaking on potential threats – that “we have not seen any currently.”
Noem noted the department recognizes that “as tensions escalate that that means there could be more potential for threats here at home, that’s why we’re at an elevated threat.”
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