Iran could ‘target' U.S. officials if Tehran believes regime's survival at risk, DHS says

CTV News

4 hours ago

Iran could try to 'target' U.S. government officials if Iranian leaders believe 'the stability or survivability' of their regime is at risk, according to a new Department of Homeland Security bulletin obtained by CNN. Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images via CNN Newsource
Iran could try to 'target' U.S. government officials if Iranian leaders believe 'the stability or survivability' of their regime is at risk, according to a new Department of Homeland Security bulletin obtained by CNN.
Other scenarios for potential Iranian targeting of U.S. officials include if Tehran considers them to be involved in the deaths of senior Iranian leaders or believes U.S. airstrikes will continue, according to the bulletin from DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which was sent to state and local law enforcement and is dated June 22.
CNN has requested comment from the Iranian government's mission to the United Nations.
On Monday, Iran fired missiles towards a U.S. military base in Qatar in retaliation for the U.S. strikes on Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter.
But the DHS bulletin is one of the clearest connections yet drawn by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement analysis about the potential violent backlash against civilian government officials for President Donald Trump's decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites.
'It is our duty to keep the nation safe and informed, especially during times of conflict,' Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement to CNN when CNN asked DHS for comment on the bulletin. 'The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict brings the possibility of increased threat to the homeland in the form of possible cyberattacks, acts of violence, and antisemitic hate crimes.'
The bulletin does not specify what the 'targeting' of U.S. officials might look like but the Justice Department has previously alleged that Iran has tried to kill Trump and his former national security adviser, John Bolton, in retaliation for a 2020 U.S. military strike that killed senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
'We have not yet observed Tehran threaten this kind of retaliatory action in response to the U.S. airstrikes, and recent law enforcement action could challenge Iran's ability to execute a plot against U.S. officials in the short-term,' the bulletin said.
Trump raised the topic of regime change in Iran in a social media post on Sunday evening.
'It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!' Trump wrote.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said that Trump was 'simply raising a question' when he brought up the topic.
CNN reported last year that intelligence about a threat from Iran to Trump led the Secret Service to step up security around the then-presidential candidate. Ultimately, those protections did not prevent a security lapse that allowed a 20-year-old lone gunman unaffiliated with Iran to nearly kill Trump at a July 2024 rally in Pennsylvania.
Several top former Trump aides who continued to have security details due to the threat from Iran have since faced retribution from their former boss and had those details pulled. In the years since the U.S. killing of Soleimani, multiple former Trump administration officials have beefed up their personal security details.
The new DHS bulletin, labeled 'For Official Use Only,' adds more context to the department's public warning on Sunday of a 'heightened threat environment' in the U.S., citing the possibility of 'low-level cyberattacks' and continued potential of lone-wolf attacks.
Days before the U.S. strikes on Iran, law enforcement officials told CNN that they were reexamining known or suspected Hezbollah associates in the US, looking for possible threats that could arise as tensions with Iran increase. There's no indication of credible threats at this time, the sources said.
Iran's security services often use hacking to gather intelligence on targets of assassination or surveillance, Iran-focused cybersecurity experts have told CNN. A former Trump official and onetime confidant of Bolton was hacked in 2022, in a possible effort to track Bolton's movements as part of the assassination plot, CNN previously reported, not naming the ex-official.
'In the short-term, we are most concerned that Iran-aligned hacktivists will conduct low-level cyberattacks against U.S. networks, including distributed denial-of-service attacks,' the new DHS bulletin obtained by CNN said. 'We are also concerned about cyber or physical attacks against critical infrastructure in the Homeland.'