Iran may be activating sleeper cells outside of the country, according to an alert that was intercepted by the US.
The encrypted communications, believed to have come from inside Iran, was sent as an ‘operational trigger’ for ‘sleeper assets,’ according to ABC News.
Sleeper cells are agents or terrorists planted in countries who blend in with normal civilians until they are needed to carry out an attack.
The message was transmitted across multiple countries shortly after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was obliterated in a joint Israeli-US airstrike in Tehran on February 28.
There have been heightened fears across the US in the last week that covert agents laying low in America may be triggered to retaliate after the war in Iran erupted.
Preliminary signals analysis has led the US to believe the message was ‘likely of Iranian origin,’ and was sent to ‘clandestine recipients,’ who have a passcode.
Because the message had ‘international rebroadcast characteristics’ American intelligence believes its likely that it could be for sleeper cells. There was no operational threat tied to a specific location, the outlet said.
According to the outlet, the alert’s nature was similar to that which imparts instructions to ‘covert operatives or sleeper assets’ without the use of the internet.
The transmissions ‘be intended to activate or provide instructions to prepositioned sleeper assets operating outside the originating country,’ ABC News said.
This is a breaking news story.
