Iran could plan attacks on overseas targets if the US follows through on threats to launch fresh strikes, Western officials have reportedly warned.
Security services in the US and Europe are “monitoring increasingly worrisome signs” that the Islamic Republic could order its terrorist proxies to carry out attacks abroad, according to the New York Times.
In particular, officials are said to be concerned that Tehran could instruct the Houthis in Yemen to resume attacks on trade shipping in the Red Sea or activate Hezbollah sleeper cells in Europe.
While no specific networks or plots have been identified, the report suggests that intelligence analysts are “tracking ‘a lot’ of activity and planning”.
"Iran can work through proxies to conduct terrorist attacks that will raise costs for any US military campaign,” Colin Clarke of the Soufan Institute told the paper.
"If the US military campaign against Iran is existential for the supreme leader and the most senior members of the IRGC, I would fully expect Tehran to order terror attacks abroad, including in Europe.”
The warnings come ahead of a third round of indirect talks between Washington and Tehran, scheduled for Thursday in Geneva and conducted through Swiss mediators, with President Trump “weighing options for US action if the negotiations fail,” per the NYT.
The report suggests that Trump is considering approving limited US strikes and, if both diplomacy and initial military action fail, “a much bigger attack in coming months intended to drive that country’s leaders from power”.
Iran’s nuclear programme is understood to be the key point at issue in the talks, with the US publicly insisting that the Islamic Republic give up all uranium enrichment.
The IAEA, the UN’s atomic watchdog, estimates that the regime holds around 400kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium, which can be refined relatively easily to the 90 per cent enrichment threshold required to be considered weapons-grade.
However, Iran has repeatedly ruled out ending its enrichment activities, claiming they are essential for civilian atomic energy projects and disputing allegations that it is developing a nuclear bomb.
The Iranian delegation is, instead, offering a number of compromise solutions – including diluting existing uranium stocks or moving them abroad – in exchange for the easing of crippling economic sanctions, according to Reuters news agency.
Meanwhile, there has been little movement on the other US red lines, namely Iran’s proliferation of ballistic missiles and its operation of a network of regional terror proxies.
These are also seen as key points by Washington, but Tehran is said to be far less willing to offer any compromises in those areas.
And, domestically, the regime is grappling with a resurgence of anti-government protests.
Footage shared on Persian-language media showed clashes erupting as crowds chanted slogans such as “death to Khamenei” and “disgraceful” in Farsi, at what news agency AFP identified as Tehran’s top leading engineering institution, Sharif University of Technology, on Saturday.
Iran International also reported demonstrations at Beheshti University, the University of Tehran, and Amir Kabir University of Technology, where footage published by Iran International shows demonstrators yelling “Long live the king” in reference to the monarchy toppled in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
These marked the first large-scale demonstrations since an initial wave of unrest was brutally crushed last month by security forces.
While the total death toll cannot be verified, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has recorded more than 7,000 killings in the crackdown, the majority of whom were protesters, though the true number may be far higher.
US President Trump claimed on Friday that the regime had killed 32,000 people during the recent protests.
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