CBS has released a report detailing the FBI’s intensified surveillance of Hezbollah sleeper cells in the United States — and the timing of their release could not be more curious.
Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst for the Center for Security Policy, is well-versed in these sleeper cells and has a theory as to why the FBI is warning Americans about them.
“One of the things to pay attention to is the tricky semantics of sleeper cells,” Shideler tells BlazeTV host Jill Savage and Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson. “When you’re talking about a sleeper cell, are you talking about a group of terrorists who completely blend in with the American mainstream, are not otherwise observable, and then just one day receive a coded radio message and go blow things up?”
“That’s usually not how it works. I’m not saying it can’t happen, but typically what we see from cells inside the United States linked to terror groups is that they’re actually very active. They’re usually engaging in propaganda, they’re engaging in fundraising, they’re engaging in recruitment, especially when you’re talking about Hezbollah,” he continues.
These sleeper cells, Shideler explains, like to “buy up U.S. military hardware like night vision goggles” and ship them out of the country.
“So do you think the CBS report is a genuine scoop, or is this a strategic leak linked to something larger going on?” Peterson asks Shideler.
“My instinct is it’s a strategic leak,” Shideler responds. “Someone inside the FBI or the DOJ either wants to make sure that everybody knows that they’re doing their job, which part of your job is not letting everybody know what you’re doing, so fail on that part.”
The other reason they might have strategically leaked this information is to “play into a narrative that if Donald Trump should decide to act, we are likely to be hit here.”
“I think that’s the subtext to the timing of the leak,” Shideler says.
And while most Hezbollah sleeper cells are “fundraising and propaganda cells,” Shideler believes there is cause for concern, as there’s “good evidence that many of them do have some level of military training.”
“What they would be capable of could vary broadly,” Shideler warns. “Anything from large-scale vehicular IEDs to small-scale small arms attacks, suicide vest bombings, anything in between.”
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