US claims Iran may be activating 'sleeper assets' who could target Americans

Messages intercepted by the U.S. and believed to have originated in Iran could serve as ‘an operational trigger’ for ‘sleeper assets’ outside the country, a new report has suggested.

According to ABC News, an alert was issued to US law enforcement agencies on Monday, which references ‘preliminary signals analysis’ of a transmission ‘likely of Iranian origin’ that was broadcast across multiple countries following the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Crucially, the intercepted transmission was encrypted, revealed the alert, meaning it had only been intended for ‘clandestine recipients’, with experts fearing that it may ‘be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country’.

"While the exact contents of these transmissions cannot currently be determined, the sudden appearance of a new station with international rebroadcast characteristics warrants heightened situational awareness," the alert said.

Prior to the latest escalation of the conflict between the US and Iran, back in June, shortly before the US and Israel struck several Iranian nuclear facilities, the country warned President Trump that such a move would trigger retaliatory attacks on U.S. soil. It is now feared that these retaliatory attacks could soon become a reality, following the ten day bombardment that has so far claimed well over 1000 lives.

Trump addressed the alert in a Q&A session on Monday (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)

While speaking about the war on Monday, Trump was asked directly about the transmission and the possibility of ‘sleeper cells’ to which he acknowledged it was a current fear and that his administration was ‘very much on top of it.’

He then went on to point the finger of blame at his political rivals the Democrats, as he argued that ‘the apparatus that looks into that’ has been stalled by the partial government shutdown.

In a further dig at the Democrats, he even claimed that they ‘probably hate our country a lot.’

“We’ve got very, very good intelligence into that,” Trump continued, in reference to the possibility of sleeper assets outside of Iran. “Yeah, we know a lot about them. The biggest problem we have is the Democrat shutdown. We know a lot about them, but the shutdown doesn’t allow us to do what we have to do.”

The US is on heightened alert over fears of retaliatory responses from Iran ( Arezoo / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

Trump’s comments come after Chris Swecker, a former assistant FBI director, told Fox News that: “If ever there’s going to be a Hezbollah cell or a Hamas cell act in the United States in a violent way, it’s now.”

Earlier this month he explained: “We know that they have cells here. We also know that there are lone sympathizers, many of whom have come out in these protest groups.”

FBI Director Kash Patel also weighed in on the threat last month when he assured citizens that task forces throughout the U.S “are working 24/7, as always, to address and disrupt any potential threats to the homeland.”