Peter King: Iran May Have 'Hundreds' Of Hezbollah Agents In U.S.

WASHINGTON -- Iranian-backed Hezbollah agents, not al Qaeda operatives, may pose the greatest threat on U.S. soil as tensions over Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program ratchet up, according to the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"As Iran moves closer to nuclear weapons and there is increasing concern over war between Iran and Israel, we must also focus on Iran's secret operatives and their number one terrorist proxy force, Hezbollah, which we know is in America," said New York Rep. Peter King at a Wednesday hearing of his committee.

The hearing, which featured former government officials and the director of intelligence analysis for the New York Police Department, follows a foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, D.C., and testimony by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in late January that Iran's leaders are "more willing to conduct an attack inside the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime."

Opening the hearing, King said, "We have a duty to prepare for the worst," warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States, including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who, "it must be presumed, are intelligence officers."

But Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said he was concerned that the testimony he was about to hear was based on outdated information and not current intelligence. He noted that "no current federal officials" were asked to testify on Wednesday.

"A word of caution is in order," Thompson said. "When we examine our relationship with another country, we cannot look at any particular moment in time and pretend that it tells the whole story. We cannot view the politics, history and culture of any other country clearly by seeing a snapshot version."

Referencing Clapper's earlier testimony, Thompson said the director of national intelligence should be called in for a classified hearing, but added, "We should not engage in a public discussion that creates fear and delivers misinformation."

King rejected the Democrat's objections. "We're not focusing on foreign policy," he said. "We're talking about an internal threat to this country."

Most of the testimony -- which came from former officials at the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Treasury, among others -- concerned Iranian-linked attacks in other countries that dated back decades in some cases. However, Mitchell Silber, head of the NYPD intelligence unit that has come under fire for spying on the city's Muslim community, said that between 2002 and 2010 his agency and federal authorities detected "at least six events involving Iranian diplomatic personnel that we struggle to categorize as anything other than hostile reconnaissance of New York City."

The suspicious events, some of them publicly revealed for the first time, involved security guards at the Permanent Mission of Iran to the United Nations and Iranian diplomats stationed in New York. Among the cases Silber cited:

• On Nov. 16, 2003, at 2 a.m., uniformed NYPD officers on a subway train observed two men filming the train tracks. The men, who initially claimed diplomatic immunity, were security guards at the Iranian Mission who had recently arrived in New York.
• In May 2004, despite warnings from the State Department, two more Iranian Mission security guards were observed videotaping infrastructure, public transportation and New York City landmarks. A month later, the guards were expelled by the United States, Silber said, for "engaging in activities that were not consistent with their duties," or spying.
• In May 2005, six individuals "associated with the Government of Iran" were interviewed by the NYPD after a call to a city hot line reported suspicious behavior. The individuals on a sightseeing cruise were reportedly photographing and videotaping landmarks such as the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges as well as "reportedly speaking on their cellphones in an unusual manner." One of the individuals worked at the Iranian Mission while the other five had diplomatic immunity based on their positions within the Iranian government. They were later released.
• In September 2008, during the U.N. General Assembly, several members of the Iranian delegation were seen taking photos of railroad tracks inside Grand Central Station. After questioning, they were "released without incident."
• In September 2010, again during the U.N. General Assembly, federal air marshals reported suspicious behavior at the Wall Street Heliport, where four people were seen taking "still photos and videotaping the water line and structural area of the heliport landing pad" from a nearby parking lot. The four produced press cards showing they worked for the Iran Broadcasting Co. and were released.

Although authorities could link none of the incidents to actual plots, "Iran has a proven record of using its official presence in a foreign city to coordinate attacks, which are then carried out by Hezbollah agents from abroad, often leveraging the local community -- whether wittingly or not -- as facilitators," Silber testified.

Comments

[Sgt Barefoot]

06:45 AM on 10/07/2012

They are probably employed to do on the job training for the insurance underwriting syndicate.

[stacknef]

04:55 PM on 03/23/2012

Peter King..."I have here in my hand a list of 500 hundred Muslim terrorists right here on Long Island!!!!"

How many Peter...? "OK I have a list of 200 Muslims extremists on my Ipad that may be in the USA"

Really? Peter King... "OK I make this stuff up since theres nothing else I know how to do!"

[flea36]

11:39 PM on 03/22/2012

This message was funded and brought to you by AIPAC and Israel.

[pete619]

09:25 AM on 03/30/2012

You hit the nail on the head. I just wish the gentleman of the press were as astute.

[flea36]

11:37 PM on 03/22/2012

I wish Israel would fight just ONE war, instead of making of having their employees in the U.S. government trick us into fighting it for them. Just one!!!!

[stacknef]

04:52 PM on 03/23/2012

congratualtions on winning the Most Stupid Comment Award....

You do know that Israel has fought all of its wars without American military servicemen being directly involved, don't you? NO?? Well, perhaps you should look up who fought in the 1948, 1956, 1967, 1976 wars that the Arabs started and lost.

[davidwgray08]

02:46 PM on 05/10/2012

You DO know that without considerable US funding and military support, that Israel would not be able to fight any war at all, right?

[l78lancer]

10:29 PM on 03/22/2012

Security is too serious for King to play these kinds of silly games. If there is a real threat, then it needs to receive high priority from people who are actually in place to do something about it, not dramatized to death by government has-beens

King is playing the old politics of fear. This will eventually come up as part of republican campaigning later this year. Of course he didn't have an current officials at his hearing. If he did, they would probably have to report back to their boss, the President, who would fully understand the bogus nature of the hearing.

King is acting irresponsibly and needs to be removed from this position.

[l78lancer]

10:21 PM on 03/22/2012

"King rejected the Democrat's objections. "We're not focusing on foreign policy," he said. "We're talking about an internal threat to this country.""
--------------------------------------------------->

If the focus is on internal threats, it seems even MORE important to hear from current officials who can provide recent if not contemporaneous info. You cannot respond to current threats with old information and hearsay. This calls into question both the validity of the information as well as the motives of the Chairman.

King is playing politics - the politics of fear.

[stargazer13]

12:05 PM on 03/22/2012

Some one came from another country and took picture,s

Rut Row !

if ?? all countries feel this way I better leave my camera at home
if I ever get the chance to go a visiting :)

out side of my comfort zone LOLOLoloLOLo

not to be confused with a free speech zone,s :)

[chriss0114]

10:50 AM on 03/22/2012

Republicans of mass distrusting

[chriss0114]

10:47 AM on 03/22/2012

uh-oh! tourists were spotted taking pictures! sound the alarm!

[kustom]

09:14 AM on 03/22/2012

I bet he checks all his closets before he goes to bed.

[ThisOldHouse]

07:33 AM on 03/22/2012

"King rejected the Democrat's objections. "We're not focusing on foreign policy," he said. "We're talking about an internal threat to this country."

All the more reason to use current information Mr. King.

[RLaitres]

07:30 AM on 03/22/2012

The operative words are "may have" in Mr. King's statement. We therefore must assume that he doesn't know, and is merely speculating. It is really an appeal to "fear" something which we have seene previously with the likes of McCarthyism where he saw a Communist behind every bush and used his position to promote paranoia, something which, in the minds of some, has not yet fully dissipated. Is there a likelihood that there are such agents in this country. Yes there is as we have many agents from many countries, even those whom we consider allies. But then, probably every country has, which is the normal course of relations between nations as has always been the case. However, some of us are not so frightened as to allow our thinking on issues by anyone whose basis is pure speculation, and without hard facts or, at the3 very least, a well informed opinion and a high degree of probability that such is the case.

[SirRealDeal]

07:38 AM on 03/22/2012

f and f for pointing out the conditional statement "may have"

[Brandon Broze]

07:15 AM on 03/22/2012

This is such obvious BULLsh*t designed to stir up MORE tensions between the U.S.-Israel and Iran. They're just beating the war drums louder and louder until "we" have enough excuse to bomb.

[popart]

05:46 AM on 03/22/2012

Hundreds of agents...Oh I am so scared. Actually Mr. King the truth is that i am more frightened of my neighbors with guns than I am of a few Iranians with camears.

[TeeSC]

12:33 PM on 03/22/2012

Wish I could fan that comment a thousand times.

[jamesjv]

03:34 PM on 03/22/2012

Until there is an at.tack here in the US. Before 9/11, nobody believed that kind of an at.tack was possible.

[pete619]

09:43 AM on 03/30/2012

I remember doing duck and cover drills in school, back in the sixties. I don't think that duck and cover would have saved us kids from thermo nuclear explosions though but, we still did them. Being prepared is one thing, living in a constant state of fear because, of fear mongering, grandstanding, politicians like Peter King is another. I'm just not going to live in fear, I'm not going to hide under a desk anymore either!

[Bonnie Larkin]

04:53 AM on 03/22/2012

If Iran / Israel engage each other - there will be attacks on the public here in this country. The enemy has already crossed over into this country through our southern borders. There are those that wish to destroy this country - that are ready willing and able to inflict mass damages - aimed at causing as much terror as they can, and those that don't believe this - that have defended the open door policy concerning our southern borders are to a great degree to blame for what is awaiting this country.

[Hass]

02:17 PM on 03/22/2012

Ummm....Iranians don't come into the US from the "southern border". These "agents" were UN security guards who were simply sightseeing.

[infopro]

02:58 PM on 03/22/2012

Re that above yours, [index finger circling at temple]

[jamesjv]

03:42 PM on 03/22/2012

No, actually Bonnie is correct. The agents they talk about in this article were security guards, but American border agents have notice Mus.lim activity on our southern border. Items like Korans and other papers in Arabic have been found. American agents have also noticed Mus.lims in Mexico, and there are rumours of their training the cartels.

Most site seers don't take pics of railroad tracks and other infrastructure.

[Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich]

07:48 PM on 03/22/2012

"Those that wish to destroy this country", are doing it under the mask of friendship/ally - with help from inside. As Buddha said: "An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind."