A Pakistani with ties to Tehran appears to have been at the center of a plot by Iran to assassinate former US President Donald Trump. He is also accused of intending to target politicians and other high-profile officials.
The Justice Department released charges against 46-year-old Asif Merchant on Tuesday and said he came to the United States in April in search of hitmen. But according to the criminal complaint, the plot backfired after the person Merchant contacted to try to carry out the plan turned himself in to law enforcement.
“This dangerous assassination plot was allegedly orchestrated by a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran and is consistent with how Iran operates,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
“A foreign-orchestrated plot to kill a public official, or any American citizen, poses a threat to our national security and will be met with a vigorous FBI response,” he said.
The criminal indictment made public in New York does not identify any specific targets for the Merchant suspect's plot, but comes just weeks after US officials said they had increased security for the former president because of a threat linked to Tehran.
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on Tuesday that it is the same threat.
“I had previously been briefed on the Iranian threat and the circumstances of Mr. Merchant's arrest, and I asked then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle if she had reviewed intelligence about the Iranian threat,” Republican lawmaker Mike Turner said in a statement. statement.
“She confirmed that she had analyzed the information and was aware of this Iranian assassination plot,” Mr. Turner added, referring to a July 22 congressional hearing where Ms. Cheatle testified about the Secret Service's failure to prevent a assassination of Mr. Trump on July 13 at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, which was unrelated to the Iranian threat.
Tuesday's charges are the latest in a growing wave of foiled plots targeting Americans and other opponents of Iran on American soil.
Last January, the US charged three people, one of whom was based in Iran, in a plot to kill two people who lived in the state of Maryland.
The US has also charged conspiracies targeting Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American human rights activist and host of a Voice of America Iran TV show, as well as an assassination plot targeting former national security adviser, Ambassador John Bolton.
Many of the recent threats, including those aimed at Mr Bolton and Mr Trump, relate to Tehran's efforts to avenge the January 2020 drone strike in Baghdad that killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. Iran, which was ordered by former President Trump.
“We have said repeatedly that we have been carefully following Iranian threats against former politicians. We have been very clear about that,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday.
“We consider this a matter of national security of the highest priority. We have invested tremendous resources into information about these threats, deterring the individuals involved in these threats, increasing safeguards against potential targets of these threats, engagement with foreign partners and we have warned Iran directly,” said Ms. Jean-Pierre.
The court-appointed attorney for the defendant in this latest conspiracy targeting Mr. Trump and others declined to comment when contacted by VOA.
But according to charging documents, Merchant traveled in April from Pakistan to Turkey and then to Houston, Texas, after spending about two weeks in Iran.
After arriving in the U.S., the lawsuit states, Merchant immediately began recruiting individuals to carry out the scheme, telling the informant who tipped off authorities that he could earn up to $100,000 and that the scheme targeted several individuals.
“The people who will be targeted are harming Pakistan and the world, including the Muslim (world). These are not normal people,” Merchant said, according to charging documents.
Plan me three phase
During meetings in New York in June, Merchant allegedly hatched a three-part plan that involved stealing documents or electronic files from a target's home, planning protests and then killing the targets on US soil.
Merchant is accused of giving two undercover agents posing as assassins a $5,000 advance payment in late June to carry out the plot, telling them he would send them more money after he returned to Pakistan.
US law enforcement officials arrested the accused Merchant on July 12, before he could leave the US.
“For years, the Department of Justice has worked aggressively to counter Iran's continued efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the killing of Iranian general Soleimani,” the U.S. Attorney said in a statement Tuesday. General Merrick Garland.
“The Department of Justice will spare no resources to prevent and hold accountable those who wanted to carry out Iran's deadly plot,” he said.
US officials predict that Tehran will not stop trying to retaliate.
“We have to be clear that the Iranian regime is ruthless. I foresee more such efforts,” FBI Director Wray told US lawmakers during a hearing late last month.
And some experts warn that even if some of Iran's efforts seem amateurish, they should be taken seriously.
“On the one hand, some of them may sound primitive or unrealistic, but on the other hand the unstoppable insistence (on undertaking them) is disturbing,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation, told VOA. for Defense of Democracies based in Washington.
“I fear that they will do everything they can in the hope that any of their efforts will be successful,” he says.
