By Danny Fenster
ticklethewire.com
The Justice Department on Tuesday afternoon announced that FBI and DEA agents had foiled a plot linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.
Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old Iranian-American, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Qods Force– a unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) –said to be a sponsor of terrorn -were charged in New York, according to the Justice Department. Arbabsiar was arrested on Sept. 29 at JFK Airport, while Shakuri remains at large.
“As alleged, these defendants were part of a well-funded and pernicious plot that had, as its first priority, the assassination of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, without care or concern for the mass casualties that would result from their planned attack,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement. “Today’s charges should make crystal clear that we will not let other countries use our soil as their battleground.”
“The criminal complaint unsealed today exposes a deadly plot directed by factions of the Iranian government to assassinate a foreign Ambassador on U.S. soil with explosives,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a Justice Department statement.
ABC News reported that the plot also included plans to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in D.C.
Authorities alleged that Arbabsiar agreed to pay $1.5 million a DEA informant, posing as an associate of a violent Mexican drug cartel, to assassinate the ambassador. The informant told him he would need four men to carry out the murder.
Arbabsiar allegedly told the informant that his cousin in Iran, who was a “big general” in the Iranian military, has asked him to find someone to carry out the assassination.
Authorities said when the informant noted that innocent bystanders could get hurt, “Arbabsiar made it clear that the assassination needed to go forward, despite mass casualties.”
“They want that guy [the Ambassador] done [killed], if the hundred go with him f**k ‘em.,”” Arbabsiar allegedly said.
Arbabsiar also allegedly discussed bombing a restaurant in the U.S. that the ambassador frequented. Arbabsiar allegedly said that killing others during the attack would be “no big deal.”
Authorities, citing the criminal complaint, said “Arbabsiar also admitted to agents that, in connection with this plot, he was recruited, funded, and directed by men he understood to be senior officials in Iran’s Qods Force.”
