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Federal authorities broke up an assassination plot on U.S. soil, prosecutors revealed Tuesday, saying a Pakistani man operating as an agent of Iran was trying to kill American officials.
Investigators said Asif Merchant tried to recruit hit men but ended up with two undercover agents. He didn’t reveal his targets but told the agents they were planning to strike “government officials,” according to court documents.
He also hoped to foment protests and steal documents from targets’ homes, the FBI said.
Authorities said Mr. Merchant arrived in the U.S. in April and quickly recruited a New York man for business dealings. He eventually made clear that those dealings were attempted assassinations. That was when the New York man went to authorities.
Officials didn’t go into detail about why they tied the plot to Iran other than to stress that Mr. Merchant was in Iran just before he came to the U.S. and spoke highly of the Islamic republic.
Still, it was clear they saw the plot as part of Iran’s attempt to retaliate for the 2020 drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
“The Justice Department will spare no resource to disrupt and hold accountable those who would seek to carry out Iran’s lethal plotting against American citizens and will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to target American public officials and endanger America’s national security,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in announcing the case.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said the plot was “straight out of the Iranian playbook.”
Mr. Merchant has a wife and children in Iran and another wife and more children in Pakistan, the FBI said.
He is charged with murder-for-hire.
The Washington Times has reached out to Mr. Merchant’s attorney for comment.
Prosecutors said Mr. Merchant described his potential assassination targets as “the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world” and said he had prayed over his actions and believed he was on a mission from God.
He asked his U.S. contact to help him recruit hit men. He said he wanted to be back in Pakistan before any attempts were made. He said he would give them their targets at the end of August or the beginning of September.
The agents acting as hit men said Mr. Merchant said he was representing others, leaving them with the impression he was working for people outside the U.S. He said he would pay through hawalas, or informal money transfers that avoid the banking system.
Mr. Merchant set up a code system with the hit men, including the term “fleece jacket” to indicate the killing. “Denim jacket” was the code for making the payments.
Mr. Merchant planned to leave the U.S. on July 12, but FBI agents showed up at his Texas residence before that to arrest him, prosecutors said.
Rep. Michael Turner, Ohio Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, connected the plot to the July assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
“President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris must make it clear that any attempt by Iran to murder former President Trump or members of his administration is an act of war,” Mr. Turner said.
He said he had reviewed intelligence showing Iran’s interest in targeting Mr. Trump.
In a hearing with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle a week after the July 13 shooting, Mr. Turner said if the lone 20-year-old gunman was able to come within an inch of killing the former president, it would have been even easier for an Iran-backed hit man.
In February, an Iraqi man was sentenced for plotting to smuggle a terrorist hit squad across the southern border to try to assassinate former President George W. Bush.
Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab was seeking retaliation for the chaos in his home country, which he blamed on Mr. Bush. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Shihab entered on a visa he obtained from a corrupt official at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. Once in the U.S., he sought desperately to stay, including filing an asylum application and even trying to arrange a bogus marriage. He obtained fake papers documenting a divorce from his wife in Iraq but never managed to set up the sham marriage.
The FBI didn’t say what sort of visa Mr. Merchant used to enter the U.S.
Mr. Wray, in testimony to Congress late last month, said he has grown increasingly worried about the ability of foreign terrorists to exploit the immigration system to cause havoc in the U.S.
The House Judiciary Committee reported Monday that the Department of Homeland Security had caught and released 99 people whose names appeared on the terrorism watchlist from 2021 through 2023.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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