Washington Foils Iranian Plot to Assassinate Officials in Retaliation for Soleimani’s Killing

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Washington announced on Tuesday that it had foiled an attack planned by a Pakistani linked to Tehran aiming to assassinate government officials in the United States in retaliation for the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in an American airstrike in Baghdad in 2020. Iranian authorities denied these allegations, which come amid unprecedented escalation in the region due to Israel’s assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and threats of retaliation from Iranian authorities and their proxies, alongside American military readiness in the Middle East.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that “the Department of Justice has been tirelessly working for years to counter Iran’s attempts to retaliate against American officials for the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani.”

The statement, quoting Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace, said that Pakistani citizen linked to Iran, Asif Merchant, was arrested and charged with attempting to commit murder “by hired killers.”

Merchant was arrested on July 12 by FBI agents who posed as professional hitmen he had tried to hire to execute his plan, according to the statement.

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Peace said, “Merchant, working on behalf of others abroad, is suspected of plotting to kill U.S. government officials on U.S. soil.”

Although the statement did not specify the targets of the assassination plot, the Attorney General ruled out any “connection” between the accused and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13. On that day, rumors circulated about an Iranian plot to assassinate the former U.S. president in retaliation for Soleimani’s death. Merchant, 46, was arrested while about to leave the United States.

The statement also clarified that the accused “is closely linked to Iran” as his wife and children reside in Tehran, while he has a second family in Karachi, Pakistan.

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Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement that the government is in contact with Washington and “awaits more details,” particularly regarding “the identity of the concerned individual.”

According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, the use of hired killers is “a quintessential Iranian method.”

Garland added that “the Department of Justice has filed several lawsuits against individuals working on behalf of the Iranian government to kill Americans in the United States.”

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He further stated that “the Department of Justice will spare no effort to stop and hold accountable those who seek to execute Iran’s plot to kill American citizens,” warning that “these threats will likely continue and this case will not be the last.”

In contrast, Iran rejected accusations of its involvement in attempting to assassinate U.S. officials, including Trump. According to the official Iranian news agency “IRNA,” Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations responded on Wednesday to what it called the U.S. Department of Justice’s allegations.

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The mission said in a statement: “We have not received any report regarding this matter from the U.S. government. But it is clear that this method (of assassinations) is contrary to the Iranian government’s policy of legally pursuing the murderer of martyr (Qassem) Soleimani.”

Iran is the arch-enemy of the United States, and diplomatic relations between the two countries have been severed since 1980.

Under the Trump administration, on January 3, 2020, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and architect of Iranian strategy in the Middle East, General Qassem Soleimani, was killed in an American drone strike in Baghdad.