'Israeli assets in US and worldwide under severe Iranian security threat'

Middle East Star (ANI) Saturday 4th February, 2012

Israel's facilities in North America and around the world are on high alert, as they face an Iranian security threat, an internal document has said.

"We predict that the threat on our sites around the world will increase ... on both our guarded sites and 'soft' sites," ABC News quoted a letter, as saying, which was circulated by the head of security for the Consul General for the Mid-Atlantic States.

Israel's internal security service Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen said that Iran is trying to hit Israeli targets because it suspects the latter to be responsible for increasing attacks on Iran's nuclear scientists.

Cohen added that Iran's Revolutionary Guard is working tirelessly to attack Israeli and Jewish targets abroad.

Local and regional law enforcement and intelligence officials in U.S. and Canadian cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Toronto have been monitoring the situation closely for several weeks, and stepped up patrols at Israeli government locations and Jewish cultural and religious institutions.

"When there is posturing like this, we always pay extra attention to any threat streams.

The thwarted assassination plot of a Saudi official in Washington, D.C., a couple of months ago was an important data point in that it showed at least parts of the Iranian establishment were aware of the intended event and were not concerned about inevitable collateral damage to U.S. citizens had they carried out an assassination plot on American soil," he added.

The letter said that Israeli bulletins have warned that the country's own passports might be used by terrorists to carry out the plot.

"According to our evaluation there is a possibility that the forged passports will be used in order to pass as Israeli citizens at the security checks in Israel and around the world. Israeli security authorities may consider an Israeli citizenship as a [criterion] to proceed with a more lenient security check in secure sites such as airports, etc.," the letter stated.(ANI)