US intelligence warned of Iranian ‘threat’ on American soil, while White House downplayed risk significance, Reuters writes

The FBI warned US state and ​local law enforcement of an elevated threat posed by Iran’s government to targets in the United States last month even as ‌the White House sought to downplay the likelihood of an attack, Reuters writes.

In the March 20 report, the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies cautioned that Iranian government “poses a persistent threat” to U.S. military and government personnel and buildings, Jewish and Israeli institutions, and Iranian dissidents in the U.S. Despite those warnings, ​the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center had not identified broad threats to the American public, the report said.

US President Donald Trump publicly has minimized ​the possibility of Iranian attacks on American soil in response to other intelligence assessments in recent months. When asked ⁠outside the White House on March 11 whether he was worried about Iran perpetrating an attack in the US, Trump said, “No, I’m not.”

The US president ​escalated his rhetoric around the conflict this week, saying on Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not meet his demands but later delaying the ​threatened assault by two weeks.