FBI warns of cyber attack if Syria bombed

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

The F.B.I. has increased its surveillance of Syrians inside the United States in response to concerns that a military strike against the government of President Bashar al-Assad could lead to terrorist attacks here or against American allies and interests abroad, according to current and former senior United States officials.

The government has also taken the unusual step of warning federal agencies and private companies that American military action in Syria could spur cyberattacks, the officials said. There were no such alerts before previous military operations, like the one against Libya in 2011.

The authorities are particularly concerned because Iran — one of Mr. Assad’s closest allies — has said there will be reprisals against Israel if the United States attacks Syria. The Iranians have also shown a willingness to sponsor terrorist attacks on American targets, according to the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing operation.

“They’re not starting from scratch — the field offices know what they have in terms of sources and investigations, but this is a directive for them to redouble their efforts and check their traps,” one senior American official said.

Senior national security officials at F.B.I. headquarters in Washington have told the bureau’s field offices in recent days to follow up with sources who have ties to Syrians in an attempt to find talk or evidence of a retaliatory strike, the officials said. And Syrians implicated in continuing investigations will be put under even closer scrutiny, the officials said.

The Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. have also sent out a classified bulletin alerting federal, state and local law enforcement officials of potential threats created by the Syria conflict, the officials said. A senior F.B.I. official declined to comment.

F.B.I. agents are expected to interview hundreds of Syrians in the coming days. During the international campaign against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya two years ago, the agency interviewed nearly 1,000 Libyans, but it was unclear if it would cast as broad a net in this operation.

The F.B.I. director during the Libyan campaign, Robert S. Mueller III, told Congress at the time that there “may be intelligence officers that are operating with the different types of cover in the United States.”

“We want to make certain that we’ve identified these individuals to assure that no harm comes from them, knowing that they may well have been associated with the Qaddafi regime,” he said.

Colonel Qaddafi’s government ultimately fell, and there were no reprisal attacks inside the United States. But a little more than a year later, terrorists attacked the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing four Americans, including the United States ambassador — an indication that reprisals may not occur right away.

During the current crisis, the Syrian Electronic Army, a group of hackers who claim to support Mr. Assad, has successfully attacked a number of American companies, including The New York Times.

“The new element here is the cyberattack,” one American official said. The group claimed responsibility last week not only for shutting down the Web site of The Times but also for causing disruptions on the sites of The Washington Post and The Financial Times.

James W. McJunkin, a former top F.B.I. counterterrorism official, said that before the Iraq war began in 2003, the bureau sent field agents to question Iraqi-Americans about whether they had noticed any suspicious behavior or had received information from relatives in Iraq that might be valuable to American intelligence agencies. He said some senior F.B.I. officials did not believe that such a labor-intensive operation was effective.

“We didn’t think the return on investment was especially high given the time and resources required to contact that many people,” Mr. McJunkin said.

The authorities’ fears were heightened on Tuesday when Iranian lawmakers and commanders said Iran would attack Israel in retaliation for any American strike against Syria.

Mansur Haqiqatpur, an influential member of the Iranian Parliament, was quoted by the semiofficial Fars news agency as saying, “In case of a U.S. military strike against Syria, the flames of outrage of the region’s revolutionaries will point toward the Zionist regime” — Iran’s derogatory term for Israel.

In 2011, the federal authorities accused Iranian officials of plotting to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States as part of a complicated plot that included plans to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Israeli and Saudi Embassies in Argentina. An Iranian-American pleaded guilty to charges that he had tried to carry out the plot and was sentenced in May to 25 years in prison.