Latest Developments
Iran plotted to assassinate former President Donald Trump in recent weeks, U.S. authorities told CNN in a July 16 report. Unrelated to the failed assassination attempt against Trump by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks on July 13, the plot prompted the Secret Service to provide the Republican nominee with increased protection. Iran denied the allegation. Tehran has previously pledged to avenge the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) military commander Qassem Soleimani, whom the United States killed in 2020 at Trump’s direction. CNN’s report came as Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, reportedly expressed interest in resuming talks with Washington over the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.
Expert Analysis
“Assassinations, be they carried out by proxies, lone-wolf radicals, or more recently trans-national criminal syndicates, are part and parcel of the regime’s long arm of terror. The Islamic Republic’s political and military elite, to include the likes of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, made clear that they want Trump and other senior Trump-era national security officials dead. It would be a strategic and moral mistake to dismiss this as cheap talk. This is a regime that, as the Middle East currently shows, has been putting its money where its mouth is.” — Behnam Ben Taleblu, FDD Senior Fellow
“Given the public reporting about active plots targeting senior members of the Trump administration, it was always a possibility that the regime might target Trump himself. With intelligence now in hand, two key questions come to the forefront: How has there been no massive consequence imposed on Tehran, and why wasn’t Trump receiving presidential-level protection already?” — Richard Goldberg, FDD Senior Advisor
Iran-Backed Assassination Plots in the U.S.
Iran has repeatedly devised plots to assassinate its opponents on U.S. soil. In 2021, U.S. prosecutors charged four alleged Iranian intelligence operatives with plotting to kidnap Brooklyn-based Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad. In January 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that the FBI disrupted a second Iranian plot to assassinate Alinejad. IRGC operatives have also threatened former U.S. government officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Advisor John Bolton, and former Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook.
Iran’s Global Assassination Campaign
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the IRGC has conducted numerous assassinations and renditions throughout the world, including in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan, Turkey, Cyprus, Iraq, India, Azerbaijan, France, Austria, Germany, Iraq, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Thailand, the Philippines, and Iran itself. Their targets included members of anti-regime organizations, journalists, dissidents, and prominent political figures critical of Iran’s regime. According to the State Department, Iran committed as many as 360 targeted assassinations worldwide between 1979 and 2020.