US mainland under threat as Iran pushes assassinations, kidnappings: report

BenjaminWeinthal

March 1, 2023

Amid the report that a top Iranian regime military official on Friday urged the murders of the ex-commander of the United States Central Command General Kenneth McKenzie, former President Trump, and former Secretary State of Mike Pompeo, a new report asserts that Iran is likely behind a "kill list" targeting law enforcement agencies in Boston.

Amirali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace, who declared during a televised interview last week that, "Inshallah (God willing) we will be able to kill Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo (former) CENTCOM chief Kenneth McKenzie, and others who ordered killing of Qasem Soleimani."

The U.S. military killed Soleimani with a drone strike in January 2020 because the EU and U.S.-designated terrorist was planning an attack and was responsible for the murder of over 600 American military personnel.

The reach of Islamic Republic of Iran terrorist activities impacted the independent TV network Iran International Iran just days ago. The Persian-language TV outlet said it was suspending its London-based operation and relocating to Washington D.C. because of a "significant escalation in state-backed threats from Iran."

Across the Atlantic, Iran’s regime—which the U.S. State Department classifies as the world’s worst international state-sponsor of terrorism— launched a kidnapping attempt of the Brooklyn-based Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad.

Following the arrest of the three alleged kidnappers, FBI director Christopher Wray noted the very real threat posed by Iran to the U.S. and the world. "The conduct charged in today’s case shows how far Iranian actors are willing to go to silence critics of the Iranian regime—even attempting an assassination right here in the United States. But looking at the threat from Iran more broadly, we’ve seen the Iranian regime become more aggressive and more brazen across vectors."

Wray continued that "In just the past couple years, actors associated with Iran have launched a ransomware attack on a children’s hospital in New England, attempted to assassinate the former U.S. National Security Advisor on U.S. soil, and now plotted to silence a U.S. citizen—a journalist who publicized the Iranian government’s human rights abuses—by carrying out a murder in the heart of New York City."

Wray warned, "If that doesn’t show how serious the threat from Iran is to Americans right here in America, I don’t know what does."

There is a bill of particulars of Iranian assassination plots on U.S. soil. In 2009, Iranian agents sought to murder California resident Jamshid Sharmahd for his opposition to the county. The regime kidnaped Sharmahd when he was in the United Arab Emirates in 2020 and sentenced him to death on Tuesday on reportedly trumped-up charges.

In 2012, the former New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly disclosed during an anti-terror conference that "We’ve been concerned about Iran for a while."

In 2014, the United States government linked Iran’s regime to the planned assassination of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador in a Washington, D.C., restaurant.

A new 24-page report by U.S.-based Zachor Legal Institute outlines what it says are Iranian threats against U.S. targets that include the Boston Police Department, the FBI and other government and law enforcement agencies.

The report, titled "The Unseen Threat of The Mapping Project," claims there "is considerable evidence that Iranian elements may be involved in creating the Mapping Project." The document notes that the Iranian regime-owned PressTV -published a "supportive column" on June 26, 2022, and a 30-minute video segment about it in July of the same year that praised the Mapping Project and called for its replication in all 50 American states.

The U.S.-sanctioned outlet PressTV reported, "It is perfectly legitimate to target Jewish groups that support Zionist crimes, just as it is to target Christian groups that do the same. The Mapping project, to its credit is already doing that."

Rebekah Koffler, a former analyst at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, told Fox News Digital, "It is my professional assessment that there’s a high probability of Iran's involvement in this heinous project. The project’s stated goals, antisemitic narrative, and methodology employed to galvanize support from extremist sympathizers, are consistent with the tradecraft of Iranian intelligence tradecraft and Iran’s declared policy to target U.S. persons."

The Boston Mapping Project was initially thought to be largely limited to planned antisemitic terrorism attacks against Jewish and Israeli organizations in Boston. The Zachor Legal Institute, however, revealed that "out of the roughly 500 entities publicly listed on the Mapping Project website, 298 are American strategic security assets and institutions. This raises concern that the true goal of the project is to map the American security apparatus and that the targeting of the American Jewish community – while real and troubling – may be a façade to obfuscate this plan."

Fox News Digital reported last year that Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Boston, which supports the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, posted an endorsement of the Mapping Project.

According to Zachor, "A particularly noteworthy feature of the Mapping Project is that it provides, in meticulous detail, the precise addresses of U.S. government institutions and law enforcement offices. This refers not only to department and agency headquarters but also to numerous local branches and offices of these institutions."

Koffler said "As recently as last November, Homeland Secretary Mayorkas testified to the Senate that the Islamic Republic could attack the United States ‘with little to no warning.' FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that Iran posted an escalating threat to the homeland, having become more capable and more aggressive in their harmful and criminal activity."

Tehran’s clerical regime has Iranian dissidents and American officials on its terror assassination radar screen. Koffler noted that "The U.S. government already pays millions of dollars to provide 24/7 security to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former President Trump’s special envoy to Iran Brian Hook, both of whom face, to this day, ‘serious and credible’ threats from Iran."

The website of the Boston Mapping project declares that, "Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them. Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted."

Mariellen Burns, chief of communications for the Boston Police Department, referred Fox News Digital to federal partners. She also noted that, "We are continuously engaged with security and threat briefings with the Jewish Community, and they are aware we are here to help."

When asked about the report and the alleged list of federal and security targets, a spokesperson for the FBI told Fox News Digital that the organization "has no comment."

Thomas Dalton, the deputy press secretary for Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, told Fox News Digital that the attorney general "has been on the record in vocal opposition to the Boston Mapping Project." He linked his statement to a June 2022 tweet sent by Campbell stated that, "The explicit naming of people, school, and orgs within the Jewish community is dangerous and absolutely unacceptable. This creates a real threat for our Jewish community especially with an uptick in anti-Semitic attacks and hate crimes. The map should be taken down immediately."

Dalton added that, "Her position remains the same today." When pressed, Dalton declined to comment on the alleged role of Iran’s regime in planned attacks against Boston police and government agencies.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told Fox News Digital that, "We have no information to provide on this question" with respect to the alleged role of Iran in the Boston Mapping Project.

Koffler told Fox News Digital that, "The U.S. intelligence community is aware that Iran has been building networks inside the U.S. homeland for more than a decade with the goal of threatening U.S. persons directly or through proxy attacks. There have been attempts by Iranian agents to conduct lethal operations inside the U.S."

Two Democratic Massachusetts congressional representatives, Rep. Seth Moulton and Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who last year blasted the Boston Mapping Project’s antisemitism, declined to answer numerous Fox News Digital press queries about the Iranian regime threat to the Boston area. Both Democratic senators for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, also went mom in response to Fox News Digital press queries.

Koffler said, "The Biden Administration’s security team has been quite enthusiastic about investigating parents under 'domestic terrorism’ laws. It is stunning that they are ignoring the real and escalating threat …against our security institutions, such as police stations, air force bases, naval installations, the U.S. Secret Service, FBI, Homeland Security, U.S. Marshals."

When asked about Iranian plans for such an attack and whether Tehran was behind the mapping project, a spokesperson from the Iranian mission to the United Nations told Fox News Digital that "The group you mentioned isn’t supported in any way by Iran."

UN inspectors confirm ‘near nuclear weapon-grade’ uranium particles found in Iran

bneIntelIiNews

March 1, 2023

Confirmation that uranium particles enriched to 83.7%-purity—just short of weapons-grade 90%-purity—have been discovered at Iranian nuclear development facilities will pressure Western powers to censure Iran at a board meeting of a nuclear watchdog next week.

It is the watchdog, the UN’s International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), that confirmed the discovery in its quarterly report to its governing board.

Iran has vehemently denied enriching uranium to anything above 60%-purity. Tehran said the particles of 83.7% purity were simply a logical side-effect of an enrichment transition period “at the time of commissioning the process of [60%] product (November 2022)” or resulted from a process for “replacing a feed cylinder”.

However, the IAEA is not reassured. Its inspectors have made it clear that their faith in Iran’s statements on such matters, which are not backed up with corroborative evidence, is at an all-time low.

Israel continues to send out signals that it would be prepared to mount a military attack on Iranian nuclear development facilities, and would like to see UN “snapback” sanctions reimposed on Tehran in response to the progressing of its nuclear programme.

In their quarterly report, IAEA officials also pointed out that restrictions to which Iran now subjects the watchdog inspectors meant that providing a full inventory or history of Iran’s uranium enrichment process would take a substantial amount of time.

Iran continues to insist it has no intention of developing a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear programme will remain entirely civilian in nature.

And at the weekend, CIA director Bill Burns reiterated that US intelligence did not have evidence that Iran had taken a decision to weaponise uranium.

"To the best of our knowledge, we don't believe that the Supreme Leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponisation programme that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003," Burns told Face the Nation on CBS News, adding: "But the other two legs of the stool, meaning enrichment programmes, they've obviously advanced very far."

Burns did concede, nevertheless, that Iran's nuclear enrichment was more advanced than previously known and "if they chose to cross that line," Tehran would only need a "matter of weeks" to enrich uranium capable of powering a nuclear weapon.

Noting Tehran has also been advancing its missile systems, Burns said Iran was now nearing the threshold of being a nuclear state, but, crucially, it had not resumed the weaponisation.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or nuclear deal, Iran committed to limit uranium enrichment to 3.67%-purity, a level required to fuel nuclear power plants. In exchange, the major powers agreed to lift economic sanctions on Iran.  But former US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the multilateral JCPOA in May 2018.

It is since the US exit from the deal and reimposition of heavy US sanctions that Tehran has taken its enrichment levels up to 60%-purity. There is no known civilian use for uranium of such a purity.