The United States announced on Tuesday, August 7, that it had foiled the assassination on its soil of government officials fomented by a Pakistani man they believe to be linked to Iran, to avenge the death of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, killed in 2020 in a US strike in Iraq.
“For years, the Justice Department has worked tirelessly to counter Iran’s attempts to retaliate against American officials for the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani,” Justice Secretary Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Pakistani national with ties to Iran, Asif Merchant was arrested and is being prosecuted for planning “murder by hitmen,” announced Merrick Garland, alongside FBI Director Christopher Wray and Brooklyn, New York, federal prosecutor Breon Peace. Arrested on July 12 by FBI agents posing as hitmen and then taken into custody, “Merchant, working for others abroad, is suspected of planning the murder of United States government officials on American soil,” accused prosecutor Peace. Without identifying the individuals targeted, the Minister of Justice ruled out “any link” between the accused and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on July 13, after rumors of an Iranian plot.
The 46-year-old Pakistani was arrested just before leaving the United States and is considered by Washington to be “closely linked to Iran” because he has a wife and children in Tehran. He has another family in Karachi, Pakistan.
Pakistani Foreign Affairs announced that it was in contact with Washington and “waiting for more details” particularly on “the background of the individual in question”. For FBI Director Christopher Wary, this use of hitmen “is straight out of Iranian methods”.
The Iranian Threat
“The Justice Department has prosecuted numerous cases against individuals acting on behalf of the Iranian government to kill Americans in the United States,” Secretary Garland said. “These threats are likely to continue, and this case is not the last,” he warned.
Iran is the United States’ bête noire. Their diplomatic relations have been severed since 1980. Just two years ago, Tehran called “ridiculous” accusations by the American justice system that a member of the Revolutionary Guards had plotted to kill John Bolton when he was national security adviser to then-President Donald Trump.
Under President Trump, on January 3, 2020, General Soleimani, who was the architect of Iran’s Middle East strategy and the head of the Qods Force responsible for the Revolutionary Guard’s external operations, was killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq.