Alert: FBI Monitoring Possible Domestic Sleeper Cells
While President Donald J. Trump weighs strategic military options in the ongoing war between Israel and Iran, federal authorities are increasingly focused on a far more immediate threat: terrorist operatives potentially embedded on American soil.
According to a Thursday report by CBS News, the FBI — now under the leadership of Director Kash Patel — has intensified its surveillance of potential sleeper cells connected to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror proxy long embedded in the Middle East and with known links in the West.
Experts warn that as Iran’s regime teeters under Israeli military pressure, it may seek vengeance in the form of asymmetric warfare — including launching terrorist attacks inside the United States.
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View PlansBarak Seener, a research fellow with the Henry Jackson Society, told reporters on a conference call that the crumbling Islamic Republic may now view violent retaliation as its only option. “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 affects the rational calculus,” Seener said, according to the New York Post.
The FBI has reportedly zeroed in on Hezbollah sleeper agents who may have infiltrated the United States, with at least some believed to have entered via Venezuela — a well-documented gateway for transnational crime and terror networks.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Nelson told NewsNation that these agents may be in position to launch attacks should the United States deepen its involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict. “It seems likely [Hezbollah and Iran] would try to activate sleeper cells in the United States as retaliation if the U.S. joins in the strikes, so it would be prudent for the FBI to be monitoring,” he said.
Nelson further emphasized Iran’s long-term commitment to regime preservation: “If they think we are going to get involved, then, one of their options is to attempt asymmetric attacks on the United States. In other words, activating stateside sleeper cells.”
Despite President Trump’s strong backing of Israel and America’s ongoing defensive support — particularly against Iranian missile and drone strikes — the administration has not confirmed any decision on direct military strikes, such as targeting Iran’s deeply fortified nuclear facilities.
Neither the White House nor the FBI responded to requests for comment on the CBS report.
Yet Iran’s malign footprint in the U.S. is not theoretical — it’s a matter of historical fact.
In 2011, the Department of Justice charged an Iranian-American and a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in a foiled plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. The Iranian-American was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In 2019, another Hezbollah sleeper agent received a 40-year sentence for surveilling U.S. targets, including federal buildings and airports. In 2022, the DOJ indicted an IRGC operative for plotting to kill former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton. And in 2024, a Hezbollah-trained illegal alien apprehended at the southern border confessed plans to construct and detonate a bomb on American soil.
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View PlansAs Israel’s war effort continues, Seener warned that the Islamic regime may lash out with increasing desperation. “As the conflict in the Middle East escalates and Iran is being targeted, the regime thinks to itself, ‘OK, we are on our last throes, and therefore we will go out with a bang, quite literally,’” he said, according to NewsNation.
The risk, he added, only grows as the war drags on. “The more protracted this conflict goes on, the heightened risk for both U.S. forces and assets in the Middle East, but also to U.S. security domestically.”