Report: Iran threatens U.S. Army base

Iran has made threats against Fort McNair, an Army post in the U.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 Army 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 M. Martin and plans to infiltrate and surveil the installation, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss security matters and 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.

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.

As District of Columbia officials have fought the enhanced security along the channel, the Army has offered only vague information about threats to the installation.

The intercepted chatter was among members of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and centered on potential military options to avenge the 2020 U.S. killing of the Quds leader, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad.