US cities on alert for terror attack by Iranian agents

US police were on high alert today amid fears Iran is plotting an attack on a major city.

The White House has warned all police forces to be prepared after attempts to bomb Israeli targets in Thailand, Georgia and India this week. Officials are tracking potential Iranian operatives or anyone with links to the country's terrorist group.

Los Angeles, which has one of the world's largest Iranian communities has moved potential Iranian threats to the top of its intelligence briefings over the past few weeks.

"The attacks overseas raise everybody's anxiety level a little bit," said Michael Downing, commander of the LAPD's counter terrorism unit.

The New York Police Department said it assumed Iran would attack the city because of its large Jewish population. Iran has accused Israel of assassinating nuclear scientists, while Israel has warned of a military strike against Iran's nuclear sites. The chairman of the House of Representatives homeland security committee, Peter King, said Hezbollah and Iran are capable of attacks inside the US. He added that he had received two intelligence briefings on the Iranian threat in the past two weeks.

He said: "We know they're here, mainly facilitators and fundraisers, that type of thing. How quickly they could be activated, what others there are here, that's the unknown."

Today in Bangkok police said they were searching for two more suspects. One may have been providing training in the use of explosives to three Iranian men who were detained after the plot was discovered on Tuesday.

The three men had partied with prostitutes at the southern beach resort of Pattaya shortly before their arrest.

The Bangkok Post showed them at a Middle Eastern restaurant, two of them embracing women. The men posed around a drink-filled table on which there was at least one bottle of beer.