The United States will cut staff levels at four of its Middle Eastern embassies after a senior intelligence briefing warned of heightened Iranian threats to American personnel. The move was outlined in a memo sent Friday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio by Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton.
In the memorandum, Clayton wrote that his teams “have received intelligence that Iran has substantially increased efforts to target U.S. personnel.” The assessment prompted the State Department to begin a reduction in diplomatic staffing as a precaution.
The staffing adjustments are intended to lower the risk to U.S. diplomats and support staff operating in the region, though specific numbers and the identities of the affected embassies were not disclosed.
Iran and the United States have a long‑standing adversarial relationship, and recent months have seen a series of diplomatic and security tensions across the Middle East. U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Iranian actors have expanded surveillance and hostile activities aimed at American interests abroad.
Rubio’s office has not provided a timeline for the reductions, but the decision underscores a broader U.S. effort to safeguard its overseas personnel amid what officials describe as an increasingly volatile security environment.
<small>Source: PBS NewsHour — read the original story there.</small>
