Weapons seized as part of the FBI foiling an Iranian assassination attempt on Trump - FBI

Iran hired a hitman to assassinate Donald Trump weeks before the presidential election, the US said on Friday as it announced criminal charges against three suspects.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) revealed it had thwarted the murder-for-hire plot ordered by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in revenge for Mr Trump’s fatal 2020 strike on the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

DoJ officials waited until days after Mr Trump’s sweeping victory in the White House race to disclose there had been yet another attempt on the president-elect’s life.

Mr Trump had been widely expected to resume his hardline stance on the Islamic Republic if he regained the presidency.

He has pledged to return to a maximum pressure campaign in a second term in office.

“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including president-elect Donald Trump,” Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said.

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Trump plans to target Tehran’s oil sales

Mr Trump intends to aggressively target Tehran’s oil sales after taking an Iranian assassination attempt “personally”, sources close to the next US president said.

Hitting the Iranian oil industry will form part of a wider strategy designed to throttle the Islamic Republic’s funding of its Middle Eastern allies, insiders aware of Mr Trump’s plans told the Wall Street Journal.

“People tend to take that stuff personally,” Mick Mulroy, a former top Pentagon official, said. “If he’s going to be hawkish on any particular country, designated major adversaries, it’s Iran.”

When he takes office in January, Mr Trump will rapidly go after foreign ports and traders who handle Iranian oil, insiders said.

In the indictment unsealed on Friday, the FBI said the Iranian regime had in recent years begun outsourcing its targeting of political enemies to “organised crime groups and violent criminals”.

Investigators learnt of the newly-disclosed plan to kill Mr Trump from Farhad Shakeri, an alleged Iranian government asset.

An Afghan national who immigrated to the US as a child, Mr Shakeri spent 14 years in prison in New York following a conviction for robbery.

It was while behind bars that the FBI said he met a web of criminal associates who participated in Tehran’s assassination plots. He was deported from the US in 2008 and is believed to be in Iran.

Shakeri ordered to provide kill plan

Mr Shakeri met with an official from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) on Oct 7, the anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, according to the complaint.

He was ordered to provide a plan to kill Mr Trump within seven days of the meeting.

If he was unable to carry out the assassination attempt within the proposed time frame, the IRGC official instructed Mr Shakeri to put it on hold until after the US election on Nov 5.

The Iranian regime believed that Mr Trump would lose his third White House bid, and “it would be easier to assassinate” him afterwards, according to the filing.

Mr Shakeri claimed to the FBI that he did not intend to murder Mr Trump “within the timeframe” proposed before the election.

Other US and Israeli citizens allegedly targeted

The Iranian government also allegedly tasked Mr Shakeri with killing other US and Israeli citizens based in the US.

They included Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American journalist and activist who is an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime.

Ms Alinejad said she was “shocked” to learn of the plot from the FBI, which involved an attempt to target her at Fairfield University, where she was scheduled to give a talk.

“I call on the US government and the future president of the United States to be tough on terror,” she said.

The FBI identified two accomplices of Mr Shakeri, Carlisle Rivera, 49, and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, both of New York, who were charged separately in the plot on Ms Alinejad.

Both men are in US custody and made a court appearance in New York on Thursday, the DoJ said.

Two of Mr Shakeri’s other targets were Jewish American citizens living in New York, for whose murder he was allegedly offered $500,000 each.

It is claimed he was also tasked with targeting an Israeli tourist in Sri Lanka.

Security bolstered for Trump

Washington has repeatedly accused Tehran of seeking to assassinate prominent US officials in retaliation for the death of Soleimani.

US officials said in July that they had bolstered security for Mr Trump following intelligence that suggested Tehran was aggressively targeting the Republican candidate.

It followed the charging of a Pakistani man who was suspected of attempting to carry out political assassinations at the behest of the Iranian government.

The State Department has also announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate Mr Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton.

A former White House official said the new administration would look to isolate Iran by building on a “maximum pressure” sanctions regime that Mr Trump pursued during his first term.

“I think you are going to see the sanctions go back on, you are going to see much more, both diplomatically and financially, they are trying to isolate Iran,” the official said.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk reportedly joined a call between Mr Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, following his defeat of Kamala Harris in the US election.

It remains unclear what role the billionaire, who played a critical role in Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign, will play in the Republican’s second administration.

During the 25-minute call, Mr Musk promised to continue to support Kyiv with his Starlink satellites

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