Jay Clayton Orders Staff Withdrawals as Iran Plots Reach Advanced Stage

Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton instructed the State Department to remove non-essential personnel from American embassies in the Middle East. The move followed an internal assessment that Iran has moved to the advanced stages of planning lethal attacks against US officials and citizens abroad.

Clayton sent the warning to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a memo first reported by Axios. The document states that US agencies have observed Iran substantially increasing its efforts to target US personnel overseas. The threat assessment now includes potential targets in Europe, not just the Middle East. Some intelligence suggests Iranian operatives are already active inside the United States.

The State Department confirmed Wednesday that it was pulling staff from its embassy in Saudi Arabia. The department cited escalating attacks on Saudi infrastructure by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. CNN reported similar quiet reductions at embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Lebanon. A US official told The New York Times that both Houthi attacks and Iranian terror plots were driving these decisions.

US officials describe the threat level as the highest since the US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28. President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US may launch another military campaign using the codename for the current war. The White House has not publicly commented on Clayton’s memo, though one official confirmed its authenticity to The New York Times. Another official suggested Iran lacks the capacity to execute all its planned attacks.

Iran has not responded to the new intelligence warning. However, the Pentagon confirmed that 21 US military personnel have been killed in the Middle East since the war started in February. On Wednesday, Revolutionary Guard spokesman Hossein Mohebbi declared that Tehran would adopt a new offensive strategy if the US resumed attacks. He stated that Iranian missiles had improved in quality, range, and power.

Reuters reported that two senior Iranian security officials said Tehran has detailed plans to target undersea communications cables in the Gulf. Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei warned that data centers and artificial intelligence facilities across the region could also be hit if war resumes. US authorities have a long history of accusing Iran of plotting against Americans, including a March conviction of a Pakistani national for plotting to assassinate President Trump on Revolutionary Guard orders.

This month, US authorities pulled bombers from an airbase in England after a security incident. UK authorities arrested several men on suspicion of working with Iranian intelligence. The US intelligence community previously warned that Iran would continue to directly threaten US persons globally, particularly those involved in the 2020 killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.