Iran makes ‘Cole-style’ threat against DC post, officials say
Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the nation’s capital, and against the Army’s vice chief of staff, two senior U.S. intelligence officials said.
They said communications intercepted by the National Security Agency in January showed that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard discussed mounting “USS Cole-style attacks” against the post, referring to the October 2000 suicide attack in which a small boat pulled up alongside the Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden and exploded, killing 17 sailors.
The intelligence also revealed threats to kill Gen. Joseph Martin and plans to infiltrate and monitor the post, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The post, one of the oldest in the country, is Martin’s official residence.
The threats are one reason the Army has been pushing for more security around Fort McNair, which sits alongside Washington’s newly developed Waterfront District.
City leaders have been fighting the Army’s plan to add a buffer zone of about 250 feet to 500 feet from the shore of the Washington Channel, which would limit access to as much as half the width of the busy waterway running parallel to the Potomac River.
The Pentagon, National Security Council and NSA either did not reply or declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
As District of Columbia officials have fought the enhanced security along the channel, the Army has offered only vague information about threats to the post.
At a virtual meeting in
January to discuss the proposed restrictions, Army Maj. Gen. Omar Jones, commander of the Military District of Washington, cited “credible and specific” threats against military leaders who live at the post. The only specific security threat he offered was about a swimmer who ended up on the post and was arrested.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s sole representative in Congress, was skeptical.
“When it comes to swimmers, I’m sure that must be rare. Did he know where he was? Maybe he was just swimming and found his way to your shore?” she said.
Jones conceded that the swimmer was “not a great example there, but our most recent example” of a security breach.
He said the Army has increased patrols, erected more restricted area signs and placed cameras to monitor the channel.
City officials and residents said the Army’s request for the buffer zone was a government overreach of public waterways.
Discussions about the
Fort McNair proposal began two years ago, but the recent intelligence gathered by the NSA has prompted Army officials to renew their request for restrictions.
The chatter was among members of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and centered on potential military options to avenge the killing of the former Quds leader, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad in 2020, the intelligence officials said.
They said Tehran’s military commanders are unsatisfied with their counterattacks so far, specifically the results of the missile attack on Ain al-Asad airbase in Iraq in the days after Soleimani’s killing. No U.S. service members were killed but dozens suffered concussions.
Norton said that in the two months since the January meeting, the Pentagon has not provided her any additional information that would justify the restrictions around Fort McNair.
The proposed changes would prohibit people and watercraft from “anchoring, mooring or loitering” within the restricted area without permission.