An Iranian agent, Majid Dastjani Farahani, is being sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for reportedly plotting the assassination of several U.S. officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The assassinations are said to be intended as acts of revenge for the U.S. killing of Iranian General Major General Qasem Soleimani, which happened during Pompeo's tenure in office.
The FBI is hunting for an alleged Iranian spy who is accused of plotting to assassinate former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other American officials.
Majid Dastjani Farahani speaks Farasi, French, Spanish and English and frequently travels between Iran and Venezuela, according to an alert Friday by the agency’s Miami field office.
The 41-year-old suspected member of Iran’s brutal Ministry of Intelligence and Security had been recruiting “individuals for operations in the U.S., to include lethal targeting of current/former [U.S. government] officials,” the FBI said.
The alert came as Iran sought to avenge the 2020 US assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani under Pompeo’s watch.
Farahani had been recruiting individuals “as revenge” for Soleimani’s death, according to the feds.
Iran is generally recognized as the primary state sponsor of Islamic terrorism throughout the world. It's not at all unlikely that the regime would also sponsor assassinations.
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General Soleimani was killed in 2020, during the presidency of Donald Trump and while Mike Pompeo was Secretary of State.
He was killed at Baghdad airport, along with other Iran-backed militia figures, early on Friday in a strike ordered by US President Donald Trump.
Mr Trump said the general was "directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people".
Soleimani's killing marks a major escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Before his death, Soleimani was regarded as Iran's second most powerful figure, coming after only the Ayatollah Khamenei. He was the commander of the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He was also suspected of planning attacks on American servicemen and civilians as well as American installations throughout the region.
This isn't the first report of an Iranian national plotting the assassination of a former U.S. official. In 2022, an Iranian, Shahram Poursafi, was charged by the U.S. Justice Department with trying to recruit the killing of a former U.S. official, former Ambassador John Bolton, as well as Secretary Pompeo. Poursafi's plot was also “likely in retaliation” for the January 2020 US air strike that killed General Soleimani. Also, a report last November described Iran's increasing efforts to carry out assassinations of American officials.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has made targeted assassination a matter of accepted state policy. Known examples of assassinations or attempted/plotted assassinations include 21 targeted Iranian dissidents, 34 targeted Israelis or Jews, 25 plots against Western targets, and eight plots against citizens of Arab nations or other regional targets.
Following the FBI's announcement of the hunt for Farahani, both former Secretary Pompeo and President Donald Trump were provided increased security.
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