Will Iran Strike the US Homeland? | The American Spectator

The U.S. has been rocked by two terrorist attacks in recent days. On March 7, the attempted Manhattan terrorist attack by Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, with the Manhattan DA stating that the attack was inspired by ISIS. On March 5, Mohamed Bailor Jalloh killed one person and wounded two others by shooting in a classroom at Old Dominion University. Jalloh was a previous army national guardsman who, in 2017, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for providing material support to ISIS, but was released about 2.5 years early when he completed a “drug treatment program.”

While both attacks currently appear to be inspired by ISIS, they raise questions of how capable the Islamic Republic of Iran is if it wanted to strike the U.S. Could Iran do so, and how?

Civilian Targets Including Synagogues and Jewish Schools

Iran might seek to attack various civilian targets in the U.S. The FBI is investigating whether Ndiaga Diagne, the terrorist responsible for the Austin, Texas bar shooting that killed four people (including himself) and injured 15 more, was a terrorist attack and if he was connected to or inspired by Iran. Diagne had a T-shirt with an Iranian flag, a “Property of Allah” hoodie, pictures of Iranian leaders in his home, and posted “THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION IS ETERNAL” on social media in a response to the Iranian foreign minister criticizing President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Other plausible targets for Iran in the U.S. would be synagogues and Jewish schools. The IDF has recently confirmed that Ayman Muhammad Ghazali, the terrorist who was shot dead after ramming a Michigan Jewish preschool, had a brother who was a Hezbollah operative killed by Israel in Israel’s current campaign against the terrorist group.

This weekend, Israeli officials warned that Iran has begun heightened efforts to target Israelis and Jews abroad. And recent attacks in Europe have Iran’s fingerprints on them. Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya [the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right (IMCR)], a new Shiite terrorist group, has claimed responsibility for four attacks this month on the Jewish community in Europe: a bomb attack on a Jewish school in Amsterdam, Netherlands; bomb attacks on synagogues in Rotterdam, Netherlands and Liege, Belgium; and an unnamed target, referred to “a Zionist,” in Greece. The logo of the terrorist group resembles the logos of Hezbollah and Iranian-aligned terror groups in Iraq. The “Axis of Resistance,” which is a collection of terror groups directed by Iran, has broadcast the messages of the new terror group via Telegram.

Assassinations 

The Islamic Republic may continue to attempt to assassinate key political figures in the United States. Last week, a federal jury convicted Asif Merchant, also known as “Asif Raza Merchant,” of attempting to kill President Trump via murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries. Merchant was a trained operative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and admitted that the IRGC sent him to the U.S. to arrange for political assassinations and steal documents, but law enforcement foiled the plot before any attack could be carried out.

Merchant arrived in the United States in April 2024, met with law enforcement pretending to be hitmen in June 2024, and was arrested in July 2024. Merchant faces up to life in prison. Additionally, in June 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated Shahram Poursafi, an IRGC member residing in Iran, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist for his plot to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton. In May 2013, Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring with the IRGC to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States. 

Cyberwarfare

Iran can continue to wage cyberattacks against the U.S. Mere weeks ago, pro-Iranian hackers Handala were able to successfully launch a large cyberattack on Stryker, a large U.S.-based medical device company, causing a “global network disruption” to its “Microsoft environment.” According to Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity firm, Handala has direct ties to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The Tasnim News Agency, long viewed as a mouthpiece of the IRGC, has recently threatened the “Enemy’s technological infrastructure” in a social media post that included the names of several U.S. tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, and Palantir. Amazon Web Services stated that Iran’s drone strikes have hit two of its facilities in the UAE and damaged some of its infrastructure in Bahrain.

Behzad Mohammadzadeh, a member of the IRGC, was indicted in September 2020 along with a Palestinian co-defendant for cyberattacks in response to the U.S. killing of Qassem Soleimani. Mohammadzadeh personally claimed to have personally defaced more than 1,100 websites around the world with pro-Iranian and pro-hacker messages. He allegedly transmitted computer code to approximately 51 websites hosted in the United States, and defaced those websites by replacing their content with pictures of the late General Soleimani against a background of the Iranian flag, along with the message, in English, “Down with America,” and other text.

Drone Attack?

At this point, the Islamic Republic’s ability to strike the U.S. homeland via drones seems unlikely. ABC news reported that the FBI recently claimed that the agency stated that it had “recently acquired unverified information that as of early February 2026, Iran allegedly aspired to conduct a surprise attack using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from an unidentified vessel off the coast of the United States homeland, specifically against unspecified targets in California, in the event the U.S. conducted strikes against Iran,” but that the agency also stated that it had “no additional information on the timing, method, target, or perpetrators of this alleged attack.” However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the credibility of this report, calling for ABC News to immediately retract the allegations that amounted to “providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people,” and that the report was based on “one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip,” further commenting that “No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did.”

The administration, while continuing to wage war against the Islamic Republic, must also ensure that the American home front is secure. While the Islamic Republic is weakened from the successful military campaigns of the United States and Israel, the past and recent events highlight that Iran has the desire, and potentially the ability, to strike America.

READ MORE from Steve Postal:

Iran Is Asking for a Continued Military Campaign

US and Israel Continue to Degrade the Islamic Republic

Iran’s Fatal Miscalculation