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‘Highly vulnerable' Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may try to activate ‘sleeper cells' in the West as Israeli onslaught mounts: expert
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may be attempting to activate terrorist 'sleeper cells' across the West as he repeatedly makes inflammatory statements rejecting President Trump's calls for surrender, Middle East experts say.
As Iran is increasingly squeezed by Israel — losing far more than the Jewish state has in the nearly week-old war — Henry Jackson Society research fellow Barak Seener warned Wednesday that Khamenei may be seeking to awaken terrorist Iranian sympathizers across the world as he runs out of traditional resources.
'The very fact now that the Iranian regime is volatile, it's targeted, and it's highly vulnerable — that's what actually makes it increasingly dangerous to the West, in that it has nothing to lose it has this about this sense of nihilism, and it affects the rational calculus,' Seener said during a call with reporters hosted the America-Middle East Press Association.
Khamenei on Wednesday rejected Trump's demands that Tehran give up its nuclear program, calling the president's demands 'absurd rhetoric' while refusing to back down.
'The US entering in this matter is 100% to its own detriment,' he said.
'The damage it will suffer will be far greater than any harm that Iran may encounter.'
However, Iran is rapidly running low on ballistic missiles and missile launchers, making it exceedingly difficult for Tehran to follow through on any conventional threat to the United States, Israeli military experts say.
What's more, Israel has effectively defeated Tehran's proxy groups — such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, leaving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps relatively alone in its fight, Seener said.
'The very fact that Hamas and Hezbollah are sitting this one out is also a humiliation to Iran,' he said.
'They don't have their proxies to insulate them, which they have previously had.'
'These proxies have been significantly degraded, opening the skies directly for Israel to get to Tehran. And as a result of that, where can the IRGC flex? The only place where it can really flex now is the international community to potentially activate sleeper cells and to conduct malign activities at an even greater capacity than it had beforehand.'
However, it's unclear how much capability Tehran would retain if Israel manages to end the IRGC's core components and officials.
The Israel Defense Force killed IRGC commander Hossein Salami on Friday, though he was later replaced by former Iranian Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi.
'To what end does it have its ability to activate its sleeper cells or IRGC networks internationally, if the IRGC is command and control has been decapitated? Who gives the orders? Is somebody willing to put themselves on the line to conduct a terrorist activity, if they may not even get paid for it, right?' Seener said.
'I mean, these are all questions.'
'Though perhaps contingency measures have been created where malign activities can go on unaffected,' he added.
The feds have foiled several attempts by the Iranian government to conduct assassinations and terror attacks on US soil in recent years.
In 2011, Iran's Quds Force recruited, funded and directed an Iranian American man to coordinate a murder-for-hire plot targeting Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US.
Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized US citizen, received a 25-year sentence after he contracted men he believed were Mexican drug cartel associates to assassinate the ambassador — by bombing the Saudi embassy in DC and restaurants frequented by the diplomat.
Former Bronx resident and Hezbollah 'sleeper' agent Ali Kourani was sentenced to 40 years in 2019 for providing material support to the terror group between 2002 and 2015. Kourani surveilled airports, federal buildings and military facilities on behalf of Hezbollah as part of an attack-planning mission, according to federal prosecutors.
In 2022, IRGC member Shahram Poursafi was charged for allegedly attempting to arrange the assassination of former National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Poursafi — who remains at large — attempted to hire a hitman for $300,000 to take out Bolton, likely in retaliation for the US killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in a January 2020 airstrike at Baghdad's international airport, according to authorities.
Hezbollah would be the most likely Iranian proxy group to engage in terror attacks out of desperation, Brian Carter, an expert at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats project, told The Post.
'Iran or Hezbollah could turn to terrorism as a tactic in the coming months because both actors have been so badly weakened and have fewer options,' he said. 'Iran has historically used Hezbollah as a tool for its terror acts, and it is possible Iran could do so again.'
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that the track record of Iran's overseas operatives demonstrates a lack of competence in their ability to actually carry out attacks.
'The clerical regime has sometimes been persistent; it has never shown much competence or ingenuity,' Gerecht told The Post.
'They might get lucky, of course. But the current generation IRGC intel and intelligence ministry operatives may be the least impressive overseas since the revolution.'
Originally published as 'Highly vulnerable' Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may try to activate 'sleeper cells' in the West as Israeli onslaught mounts: expert
