Intelligence report warned of Iran's 'persistent threat' to US as White House downplayed the risk

President Donald Trump publicly has minimized ​the possibility of Iranian attacks on American soil

Donald Trump ​escalated his rhetoric around the conflict this week, saying on Tuesday that "a whole civilization will die tonight" if Iran did not meet his demands but later delaying the ​threatened assault by two weeks. Picture: AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein.

The FBI warned US state and ​local law enforcement of an elevated threat posed by Iran's government to targets in the United States last month even as ‌the White House sought to downplay the likelihood of an attack, a law enforcement intelligence report reviewed by Reuters shows.

In the March 20 report, the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies cautioned that Iranian government "poses a persistent threat" to US military and government personnel and buildings, Jewish and Israeli institutions, and Iranian dissidents in the US. Despite those warnings, ​the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center had not identified broad threats to the American public, the report said.