WASHINGTON—Longstanding U.S. worries about the threat that Iran and its agents pose on U.S. soil intensified in the hours after the 2020 assassination of a prominent Iranian military commander, when the Department of Homeland Security bolstered security at thousands of federal buildings against the possibility of retaliation, according to current and former senior U.S. officials.
That effort, code-named Operation Resilience according to one of the officials, was premised in large part on the concern that Iran would use its proxy Hezbollah to attack the U.S. homeland in response to the killing in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad. The slain commander, Maj. Gen.
Qassem Soleimani,
headed Iran’s Quds Force, an elite unit responsible for Iran’s shadow wars and military expansion.
On Wednesday, the Justice Department charged an Iranian national with plotting to assassinate former U.S. officials, including
John Bolton,
who served as President Trump’s national security adviser, validating long-running concerns among security and intelligence officials about the risk of domestic attacks by Iran. Former Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
was also identified as a target.
Former national security adviser John Bolton, speaking outside the White House in 2019, has advocated regime change in Tehran.
Photo:
brendan smialowski/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Operation Resilience, whose existence hasn’t been previously made public, demonstrates that the U.S. government’s concerns about potential Iranian attacks against domestic targets are much broader in scope than the targeting of prominent individuals. One of the former senior officials said that, in addition to securing federal buildings, precautionary measures put into place under the operation also included preparation for cyberattacks and ordering other departments such as the Coast Guard and Border Patrol to enhance security against a retaliation threat.
In charging documents against…
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