Pakistani man with ties to Iran is charged in plot to carry out political assassinations on U.S. soil

Close up of metal handcuffs
'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.'

A Pakistani man alleged to have ties to Iran has been charged in a plot to carry out political assassinations on U.S. soil, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Prosecutors in Brooklyn announced criminal charges against Asif Merchant, accusing him of traveling to New York to try to hire a hitman for the assassinations. The plot was disrupted before it could be carried out.

Court documents do not identify any of the potential targets, but the case was unsealed just weeks after U.S. officials disclosed that a threat on Donald Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security in the days before a Pennsylvania rally last month in which Trump was injured by a gunman’s bullet. That shooting, carried out by a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man, was unrelated to the Iran threat.

U.S. officials have warned for years about Iran’s desire to avenge the 2020 killing of Qassem Soleimani, who led the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. That strike was ordered by Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement: “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.”

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

Associated Press


2 comments

  • Ocean Joe

    August 7, 2024 at 8:00 am

    Radicalized Islam has brought us decades of terrorism, death and destruction. Some want to change us, but we are a nation with no established state religion. This includes the freedom to worship as we wish as well as the right to be free of religion.

    Taking out Soleimani is the second best thing Trump ever accomplished, with the creation of the covid vaccine (under his pressure) being the greatest. Too bad he’s a climate denier, conman and an imbecile. But if the Persians think they can assassinate him, we might see the end of the Islamic Republic and it’s shenanigans.

  • S

    August 7, 2024 at 12:27 pm

    Ants are ants. Learn they are all ants… no mergers

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