*Not A Chance -White House
As the US/Israeli war against Iran rolls on, leaving a pile of corpses -especially on the Iranian side –and massive destruction, an Iran attack on US soil to cause chaos and fear is likely.
Iranians could do this with ‘‘thousands’’ of vengeful sleeper cells hiding across the country, along with innovative drone assaults never before seen in the country, a former top US fighter pilot has cautioned after intelligence reports suggested strikes on California were possible.
“It’s not a matter of if — it’s a matter of when,” retired Top Gun Navy fighter pilot Matthew “Whizz” Buckley told The New York Post, warning that Americans were vulnerable to Iranians hungry to retaliate after the US killed the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameinei, and unleashed war across the Middle East.
Chief among the dangers, he revealed, are scores of Iranian agents who “likely” slipped into the US over the southern border with Mexico and could be waiting for orders from handlers in Tehran to strike, Buckley said.
The US was rocked by a pair of suspected terror attacks yesterday —one in Michigan, when Ayman Ghazali rammed his explosives-filled car into a synagogue’s preschool after his family was killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, and another at Virginia’s Old Dominion University at the hands of a convicted ISIS hopeful who opened fire inside a classroom.
Both suspects were killed.
“There is probably thousands, if not tens of thousands of Iranian agents and sleeper cells in this country,” Buckley said, adding that sources in US Customs and Border Protection have ominously told him ‘You wouldn’t believe how many Korans and prayer rugs we find in the desert’.
“These people are here,” Buckley said. “So not only do we have potential lone wolf or homegrown terrorists, but we have actual Iranian agents in this country.”
Buckley’s warning comes after the FBI issued a notice to California law enforcement in late February that Iran could be plotting a drone attack on the state in retaliation for the US-Israeli attack on Tehran, which left Khamenei and nearly 50 of his top officials dead.
And while the White House has denied the danger of those drone warnings — Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted they were based on “unverified intelligence” and that there was no real threat —, Buckley said Americans would still be wise to “keep your head on a swivel.”
“If I were [Iran], I’d be hitting us in our homeland, to bring the pain home to us,” he said. “You never want to underestimate your enemy.”
Potential Targets
It’s not just metropolises like New York City, Los Angeles and Washington DC that could be targets, according to Buckley — anywhere that Americans gather in large groups could be ripe for attack if Iranians want to sow chaos and fear.
“We have a lot of soft targets in this country — whether it’s a mall, a church, a school — if somebody’s crazy, if somebody is radically supporting this Islamic regime and they want to do damage, they could do some significant damage,” Buckley said.
“We could have an attack anywhere in this country,” he added. “We’re in armed conflict with the Iranians right now.”
Countless targets could also be vulnerable to drone attacks organized by Iranian operatives, who would not even need specialized equipment to pull off terrifying terror attacks,he explained.
“I don’t want to freak my fellow Americans out too much, but most of us have seen the movie ‘Miracle on the Hudson,’ right?” Buckley said, referring to the 2009 US Airways flight that safely crash-landed in the river bordering Manhattan.
“A flock of birds took out both engines on an airliner, and he had to land in the Hudson,” Buckley said.
“Guess what a flock of inexpensive drones could do when you’re on short approach or departure out of an airport in this country, to an airline engine?
“Most potential targets in this country are absolutely not ready for any sort of drone attack,” he added. “And that’s not a good thing.”
US Security Not Sleeping
It’s not all doom, however, as US intelligence keeps a close eye on anybody in the country who may be a threat — and is constantly reviewing possible terror scenarios to identify vulnerabilities, Buckley explained.
“People tend to talk, these Iranian terrorists, even if they’re professionals,” he said. “It’s very hard to avoid detection by the United States.”
“Let’s pray that Director [Kash] Patel and the FBI are on this,” he said while cautioning that Americans can never be too prepared for terror threats, because Iran is unlikely to stop looking for opportunities anytime soon.
“We really should sit here and go, ‘How would you kill as many Americans as humanly possible?’ ” he said.
“Because if we can think about it, I guarantee you these guys are thinking about it,” he noted.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Buckley.
