The FBI Is Stretched Thin. Iran Knows It.
Iran has targeted Americans before. With war escalating, here's what you need to know about ways the regime could retaliate.
Frank Figliuzzi is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.
In physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, too, in war.
America’s and Israel’s ongoing attack on Iran has already triggered foreseeable retaliation from the Islamic Republic, primarily in the gulf region. Prudent war planning involves not only a strategy to execute successful attacks, but to also anticipate and defend against the capacity of the adversary to strike back in whatever forms its resources, skill sets and history indicate.
This means the U.S. intelligence and security services, including the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI, along with our military, are on high alert to counter-threats that Iran and its surrogates pose to the homeland.
A salient example of the heightened domestic security posture and threat concerns raised by the war with Iran happened early Sunday morning in Austin, Texas. The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force immediately responded to a mass shooting in that city’s entertainment district. Three people died, including the suspect, and 14 were wounded after a man in a large SUV circled the block and ultimately fired at pedestrians using a pistol and a rifle.
The acting head of the FBI field office said agents are examining potential signs that the suspect may be connected to terrorism:
“Obviously it’s still way too early in the process to determine an exact motivation, but there were indicators on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate a potential nexus to terrorism.”
Whether or not this incident turns out to be related to international terrorism, we can expect this kind of federal response to such incidents until the threat of Iranian retaliation subsides – and that could take a very long time. As always, the threat of a lone actor will be the toughest to identify and defeat.
An internal FBI email on Sunday, obtained by the New York Times, noted that Iran and its surrogates, “historically targeted U.S. interests in response to geopolitical events, and they are likely to increase their efforts in the near term.”
 | A guest post by
|