Pakistani citizen arrested in alleged Iranian plot to kill US official, politician

Washington:

A Pakistani man with ties to Iran has been arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate a US official in retaliation for the US killing of Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Soleimani, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Asif Raza Merchant, 46, allegedly attempted to hire a hitman to assassinate a politician or a U.S. government official in the United States, the department said in a statement.

“For years, the Department of Justice has worked aggressively to counter Iran’s brazen and relentless efforts to retaliate against American public officials for the assassination of Iranian General Soleimani,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Soleimani, the architect of Iran’s foreign military operations, was killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020. Iranian authorities have repeatedly vowed to “take revenge” for the assassination.

“The Department of Justice will spare no resources to disrupt and hold accountable those who seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plot against American citizens,” Garland said.

The intended victim has not been identified, but the attorney general said no evidence has emerged linking Merchant to the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

FBI Director Christopher Wary said the Pakistani national had “close ties to Iran” and that the alleged murder-for-hire plot was “straight out of the Iranian playbook.”

Another FBI official said the assassins Merchant allegedly tried to hire were actually undercover FBI agents.

Merchant was arrested on July 12 as he planned to leave the country.

In August 2022, the United States charged a member of the Revolutionary Guard with conspiring to assassinate former US National Security Advisor John Bolton.

The Justice Department said Shahram Poursafi, who remains at large, offered to pay $300,000 to an individual in the United States to kill Bolton.

Iran dismissed the claim that it plotted to kill Bolton as “fiction”.

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