The US Embassy in Qatar has ordered Americans in the nation to ‘shelter in place’ as fears grow that Iran is planning to retaliate for US strikes on its nuclear bomb factories.
The Embassy warned Americans to seek shelter ‘out of an abundance of caution.’ A shelter in place order mandates that people must stay indoors rather than try to evacuate. It did not say how long the shelter in place order is expected to last.
There are up to 15,000 American residents in Qatar, and the United States also has 19 military facilities in the Middle East nation.
Al Udeid in Qatar is the largest US military base in the Middle East, built in the wake of the first Gulf War. It is the main hub for American and British air operations in the Persian Gulf, hosting some 11,000 American troops and more than 100 aircraft, including strategic bombers, tankers and surveillance assets.
Qatar has served as an intermediary between the United States and Iran in the past and was coordinating negotiations over Iran’s nuclear resources earlier this month before Israel ended the talks by attacking Iran on June 13.
It comes amid rising fears of an Iranian attack in response to President Trump’s B-2 bomber strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend.
On Sunday, the US State Department issued a ‘worldwide caution’ to Americans, warning of ‘potential for demonstrations against U.S. citizens and interests abroad.’
US officials are on high alert for attacks on US interests, with Trump reportedly warned by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei last week that he would unleash sleeper cell terrorists on US soil if Trump went ahead with the strikes.
Trump received a communiqué from the regime just days before he ordered US military strikes on its nuclear facilities, sources told NBC News, which was delivered through an intermediary at the G7 summit in Canada last week.
Trump and his top lieutenants quickly warned Iran against retaliating to Saturday night’s strikes with attacks on US targets or interests.
Soon after the strikes to Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump wrote on Truth Social: ‘ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also warned Iran not to launch its revenge through sleeper cells or proxy groups, as the hostile nation often does through funding of groups such as Hezbollah.
‘We’ll impose costs on Iran if they attack American personnel, whether they do it directly, or whether they do it through some of these proxies that they try to hide behind,’ Rubio said on Sunday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has cautioned the United States that Iran ‘has to respond’ to the attacks.
Araghchi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, where Putin condemned Trump’s strikes as ‘absolutely unprovoked aggression against Iran’ that was ‘unfounded and unjustified.’
Putin, who remains in conflict with Ukraine, stopped short of saying Russia would aid Iran in its war with Israel, but said he is ‘making efforts from our side to provide support to the Iranian people.’
Vice President JD Vance said that he blames former President Joe Biden’s weak border policies for exacerbating the threat, as large numbers of undocumented people were allowed into the US illegally, ‘some of whom we know are on terrorist watchlists.’
He said 1,504 Iranian nationals were encountered at the southern border during the Biden administration, and 729 were released.
On Monday, Republican Tom Cotton, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News that Americans ‘have a right to be concerned’ about the threat of terrorist sleeper cells.
‘Joe Biden had a wide-open border policy for four years, we know that terrorists tried to enter our country,’ Cotton said. ‘Iran has a long history of terrorizing America.’
The Arkansas senator pointed to intelligence that said Iran was behind attempts on President Trump’s life last year, as well as the fatwa Iran put on journalist Salman Rushdie that also resulted in an assassination attempt on him in 2022.
‘It is important that we remember, Iran did not become a terrorist state because Donald Trump bombed their nuclear bunkers, he bombed their nuclear bunkers because they’re a terrorist state,’ he continued.
‘And we cannot allow a terrorist state to have nuclear weapons.’
