Washington, 24 October. US intelligence believes that Iran has sharply stepped up preparations to assassinate American diplomats and officials in the Middle East and elsewhere, with some plots reaching "advanced stages", RBC reports, citing Axios and a memo from Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The memo is dated 23 October, one page long and unclassified. According to Anadolu, it names neither targets nor countries outside the Middle East, nor the nature of the plots. Clayton writes that the information is relevant to more personnel than are currently cleared to see it and offers to downgrade it as far as possible so that Rubio can share it more widely. The underlying intelligence has been passed to senior State Department staff.
A US official said the information is one reason why embassy staff are being reduced in the UAE, Lebanon, Qatar and Jordan. Earlier in the week, family members and non-essential staff were ordered to leave the embassy in Riyadh and the consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran. On the same day Donald Trump said at a rally in Florida that the US could launch another strike on Iran.
Iran's reaction is not reported in the sources.
What it means: Washington sees a growing threat to its diplomats in the region and is already cutting embassy staff. The open part of the memo gives no details about targets or methods.
Who benefits: American diplomats, who get security measures before the threat materialises. In the political debate, supporters of a hard line on Iran, for whom the memo is an argument; Tehran has not stated its position.
Background: The US and Israeli war with Iran has been under way since the end of February 2026; on 23 October Trump spoke of a possible "another little Epic Fury", the name of the operation with which the war began.
List of sources used: RBC, Anadolu
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
