New DHS report warns of ongoing ‘heightened threat environment’ ahead of presidential election

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Washington
CNN
 — 

The risk surroundings within the United States “stays excessive” forward of the November presidential election and conflict in the Middle East, in response to a brand new evaluation by the Division of Homeland Safety.

The annual evaluation launched Wednesday warns of doable threats from violent extremists pushed by the heated political surroundings within the US in addition to overseas and home threats from terrorist teams and others impressed by conflicts overseas. It additionally comes amid a wider battle within the Center East after Israel assassinated Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and started a ground offensive in Lebanon. Iran retaliated on Tuesday by launching almost 200 missiles at Israel.

A senior DHS official instructed reporters Wednesday that the division remains to be working to determine what Iran’s escalatory assault on Israel in current days may imply for US safety.

“It’s in fact true that occasions within the Center East over the past 12 months have contributed to this heightened risk surroundings and proceed to take action, and we’re in a relentless effort to guage and monitor what’s taking place overseas to find out what implications it has for right here within the homeland,” the official mentioned.

The official additionally famous that the assault from Iran, paired with the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel final yr, may “drive explicit violent extremists right here within the homeland to speed up or look to take motion on a timeline that will not have been anticipated.”

“We are actually within the earliest days of making an attempt to know what precisely Iranian intentions may be,” the official mentioned.

A few of these intentions of Iran and different nations, in response to officers and the report itself, are to sow confusion and chaos within the US 2024 presidential election.

“China, Iran, and Russia will use a mix of subversive, undeclared, legal, and coercive ways to hunt new alternatives to undermine confidence in US democratic establishments and home social cohesion,” the report warns.

Threats to elections, in response to the division’s report, manifest in a wide range of methods, together with misinformation from overseas actors making an attempt to confuse voters about when and the place they need to go to position their vote.

On the cyber entrance, US officers anticipate Chinese language government-backed hackers to proceed their efforts to burrow into important US pc networks for leverage within the occasion of a battle with america, the evaluation mentioned, calling that growth a high concern. FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Congress in January that the hackers are “getting ready to wreak havoc and trigger real-world hurt” ought to China select to assault US important infrastructure.

Different potential threats, nevertheless, may come from contained in the US, as they did in 2020.

“Now we have seen threats towards election staff, we’ve seen white powder letters sent to election workers to scare them,” the official mentioned. “And we’re involved that election staff, on the day of the election, may be topic to threats.”

The report warns that, throughout the election, home violent extremists “will pose essentially the most vital bodily risk to authorities officers, voters, and elections-related personnel and infrastructure, together with polling locations, poll drop field areas, voter registration websites, marketing campaign occasions, political social gathering workplaces, and vote counting websites.”

The report says that anti-government or anti‑authority violent extremists who’re prone to be impressed by “partisan coverage grievances or conspiracy theories” pose essentially the most vital risk.

“Now we have additionally lately noticed an increase in disruptive ways concentrating on election officers and workplaces—like these noticed in previous election cycles—together with hoax bomb threats, swatting, doxxing, and mailing white powder letters, supposed to instill worry and disrupt marketing campaign and election operations,” the report says.

CNN’s Sean Lyngaas contributed to this report.

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