‘We’ve got our eye on all of them,’ Trump said.
President Donald Trump said on March 11 that his administration knows the location of most Iranian sleeper cells in the United States.
Joint U.S.–Israeli strikes killed many top leaders in Iran, including Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, and denigrated the country’s military, prompting concerns that Iranian undercover terrorist cells, or sleeper cells, may act inside the United States.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) have both publicly warned of a heightened risk of terrorism in recent days.
When asked questions about reports of an internal government bulletin warning of an Iranian cell in California and about how many sleeper cells are in the United States at the moment, Trump said, “We know where most of them are; we’ve got our eye on all of them.”
He said that “a lot of people came in” because of the border policies of the previous administration.
Earlier this month, Abbott warned of potential sleeper cells in Texas after a Senegalese man fatally shot three people and injured more than a dozen people at a bar in Austin, Texas. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that the man, Ndiaga Diagne, was wearing clothing featuring an Iranian flag and the words, “Property of Allah.”
Earlier this week, Cruz told a reporter that the “risk of terrorism right now is quite high” as he made note of the Austin shooting and another alleged terrorist attack in New York City over the past weekend.
In the New York City incident, two people were arrested following the attack, in which improvised explosive devices were thrown.
On March 12, new Iranian leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued his first statement on the conflict in the Middle East, saying that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz should be used as leverage and that attacks on Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbors will continue. Mojtaba Khamenei, who is the son of Ali Khamenei, has not yet made a public appearance.
