FBI says Tehran still seeks revenge over Soleimani killing
The FBI on Thursday warned that Iran's campaign to avenge the US killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani remains active and persistent.
The FBI on Thursday warned that Iran's campaign to avenge the US killing of Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani remains active and persistent.
Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee, the bureau’s operations director, Michael Glasheen, said the FBI has made more than 70 arrests tied to hostile foreign intelligence activity since January.
“Iran continues to plot attacks against former government officials in retaliation for the January 2020 death of IRGC-QF Commander Qassem Soleimani,” he said.
“They also have continued to provide support to their proxies and terrorist organizations throughout the world, such as Lebanese Hizballah.”
Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in January 2020.
The strike, ordered by President Donald Trump, became a defining rupture in the archfoes’ relations and has since been invoked by Iranian officials as justification for long-term retaliation.
Glasheen said the FBI has already disrupted several alleged plots, noting that in October 2024 federal prosecutors charged “an asset of the IRGC” who was allegedly tasked with directing a network of criminal associates to target US officials, including Trump.
The June War factor
Tehran's threat, Glasheen said, extends beyond targeted killings to “periodic surveillance of Jewish and Israeli facilities and individuals inside the United States.
“It is possible the Israel-Hamas conflict and ensuing strikes between Iran and Israel will provoke increased Iranian surveillance of US-based Jewish and Israeli persons,” he told lawmakers.
Israel struck targets inside Iran in June, triggering retaliatory missile and drone attacks that continued for 12 days before a US-brokered ceasefire halted the exchange.
The confrontation marked the most direct military clash between the two rivals in decades and elevated concerns in Washington over Iranian activity worldwide.
Glasheen also described Iran as one of the United States’ most capable cyber adversaries, operating in “a blurred space where criminal groups and state-directed actors often converge.”
He said the FBI’s Iran Threats Mission Center (ITMC) has intensified coordination across cyber, counterintelligence and counterterrorism units “to address the threat to US interests from Iran and its proxies,” but did not outline new, specific threats.
