Iran planned to attack Washington military base, US officials say
The US uncovered Iranian plans to attack a military base in Washington by boat and assassinate a general, reports said on Sunday.
Two senior US intelligence officials told the Associated Press that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members were planning to attack Fort McNair and kill Gen Joseph Martin, the US Army’s vice chief of staff.
The US reportedly intercepted Revolutionary Guard communications in January describing “USS Cole-style attacks” – a reference to Al Qaeda’s October, 2000, suicide attack on a US Navy destroyer in the Yemeni port of Aden.
It is not known how Iran planned to stage such a small boat attack in the US.
Iran attacks US interests through proxies in the Middle East, but a river-based assault in the American capital would be highly unusual.
A Pentagon official told The National on Sunday that he could not provide any further details about the report.
Two US intelligence officials described intercepted communications among members of the Guard’s elite Quds Force about retribution for the US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad in January last year.
The US officials said Tehran’s military chiefs were unsatisfied with their counter-attacks, specifically the results of a ballistic missile attack on Al Asad airbase in Iraq shortly after Suleimani’s killing.
Fort McNair, one of the oldest army bases in the US, is where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers meet.
It is on Washington’s new Waterfront District developments and is Gen Martin’s official residence.
Security at the base has been a cause of concern for some time and the army sought to increase patrols and surveillance of the complex and nearby shoreline.