By Samantha KammanChristian Post reporter Tuesday November 12, 2024
The details of an unsealed Iranian assassination plot to kill newly elected President Donald Trump are raising questions about how the current administration will act as President Joe Biden previously warned Iran that the United States would view attacking the Republican candidate as a threat . “act of war.”
According to a Friday statement The US Department of Justice has accused 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri of planning an Iranian assassination plot against Trump in the run-up to the US presidential elections. Shakeri, who is still at large and reportedly living in Iran, was ordered by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to carry out the task.
Two other men, Carlisle Rivera, 49, of Brooklyn, New York, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, were also charged. The men were recruited to kill an Iranian-American journalist who was critical of the Iranian regime, prosecutors allege.
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As the department noted, the Iranian government is targeting US nationals and allies to suppress criticism of the Iranian regime and retaliate for the 2020 assassination of former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Qasem Soleimani. The former head of the IRGC-QF was killed in a US military strike in Baghdad.
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen efforts to target American citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – a designated foreign terrorist organization – has conspired with criminals and assassins to attack and shoot Americans on American soil, and that simply will not be tolerated.”
“Thanks to the FBI’s hard work, their deadly plans were disrupted,” he continued. “We are committed to using the full resources of the FBI to protect our citizens from Iran or any other adversary targeting Americans.”
Like the criminal complaint As detailed, the IRGC ordered Shakeri in September to “set aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and concentrate on surveilling and ultimately assassinating former President of the United States Donald J. Trump.”
A member of the IRGC instructed the asset to formulate a plan to kill ‘Victim-4’, meaning Trump. The IRGC member said that if Shakeri could not come up with a plan within the deadline, the IRGC would wait to kill him after the election, assuming that Trump would lose and that he would be easier to kill.
In October, the Biden administration warned the Iranian government to stop making plans to attack Trump, saying Washington would consider assassination attempts against the Republican candidate an “act of war.” An American official said this Reuters at the time Biden had been briefed on Iran’s plans against Americans and instructed his team to address the issue.
Regarding the recent report on the Iranian plot to assassinate Trump, it is unclear how the Biden administration will respond. The White House did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Shakeri is an Afghan national and came to the US as a child. He was deported around 2008 after serving time in an upstate New York prison for a 1994 armed robbery conviction, according to the indictment. The IRGC asset provides the Iranian military agency with contacts from a network of criminal associates that Shakeri met during his time in prison, providing them with agents to conduct surveillance or assassinate targets.
Rivera and Loadholt were part of Shakeri’s network of criminal associates, the complaint said. The journalist who wanted to kill the pair, Masih Alinejad, has written extensively about human rights violations by the Iranian government.
“I came to America to exercise my right to freedom of speech – I don’t want to die,” Alinejad wrote on Friday. X message. “I want to fight against tyranny, and I deserve to be safe. Thank you to law enforcement for protecting me, but I urge the U.S. government to protect America’s national security.”
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, alleged that the DOJ statement is part of a pro-Israel plot to complicate US-Iranian relations. The Associated Press reported.
“Repetition of the accusation in the current time frame is a disgusting plot by Zionist and anti-Iranian circles aimed at complicating the problems between the US and Iran,” Baghaei said.
Last Monday, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican, wrote letter he urges Biden to end “bureaucratic delays” and support Israel amid growing threats from Iran.
“It is clear that Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah, are seeking to exploit perceived divisions between the United States and Israel, exacerbated by recent actions by senior officials of the Biden-Harris administration,” McCaul said.
“It is imperative that you act now to deter our adversaries by showing that there is no daylight between the United States and Israel.”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman