Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, Republican Senator Jim Risch said that reports about Tehran’s intention to attack a military base in Washington is a reminder of the Iranian regime’s destabilizing influence on the international scene.
Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, a military post in the US capital, and against the army’s vice chief of staff, two senior US intelligence officials said, according to The Associated Press.
They said communications intercepted by the National Security Agency in January showed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard discussed mounting “USS Cole-style attacks” against the Army post, referring to the October 2000 suicide attack in which a small boat pulled up alongside the Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden and exploded, killing 17 sailors.
The intelligence also revealed threats to kill Gen. Joseph M. Martin and plans to infiltrate and surveil the installation, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss national security matters and spoke on condition of anonymity. The army post, one of the oldest in the country, is Martin’s official residence.
The Iranian attack would have been retaliation to the Washington’s killing of its top military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020.
Risch said the report is a sign that the US administration must include Tehran’s support for terrorism in any negotiations with it over a nuclear deal.
He vowed that he will exert pressure on the administration to that end, expressing his grave concern over Iran’s threat to Fort McNair and the US military.
This is not the first report that points to Iran’s plotting against Americans in Washington, he added.
It is just a reminder of Iran’s destabilizing influence on the international scene, especially in the Middle East, he stated.
