US Intel chief warns of 'Iranian attacks on US soil'

Washington - Some senior Iranian leaders are more than willing to carry out attacks inside the United States in response to perceived threats from America and its allies against their country, the Obama administration's top intelligence official has said.

National Intelligence Director Jim Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran's leaders seem prepared to attack US interests overseas, pointing to last fall's suspected assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador to Washington.

"The suspected assassination plot shows that some Iranian officials, probably including supreme leader Ali Khamenei, have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in America in response to real or perceived US actions that threaten the regime," The New York Times quoted Clapper, as saying.

Clapper said the US was concerned about plotting by Iran against American or allied interests overseas.

"Iran's willingness to sponsor future attacks in the United States or against our interests abroad probably will be shaped by Tehran's evaluation of the costs it bears for the plot against the ambassador as well as Iranian leaders' perceptions of U.S. threats against the regime," he added.

Clapper, however, did not provide any details on what types of attacks were possible.

According to the paper, Clapper also said that sustained pressure from the US and its allies will probably reduce Al Qaeda's remaining leadership in Pakistan to "largely symbolic importance" over the next two to three years as the terrorist group fragments into more regionally focused groups and homegrown extremists.