Pakistani man with ties to Iran convicted for plotting to kill US President Trump, other US leaders
New York (PTI): A Pakistani man with ties to Iran has been convicted here for plotting to assassinate US President Donald Trump and other American politicians to avenge the death of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020.
Asif Raza Merchant, 48, was convicted by a federal jury in a Brooklyn court Friday of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries. Merchant faces up to life in prison.
US Attorney General Pamela Bondi said Merchant came to America with a plot to kill Trump.
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The US Justice Department said in a statement that Merchant was a trained operative of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and he had admitted at trial that in 2024 the IRGC sent him to the United States to arrange for political assassinations.
Targets could include Trump, former President Joseph Biden, and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and Merchant stated he understood the “target would be Trump”, the Justice Department said.
Merchant arrived in the United States in April 2024, met with purported hitmen in June—who were undercover US law enforcement officers in New York—and was placed under arrest before leaving the country in July 2024.
“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” Bondi said.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle said that Merchant plotted to assassinate a United States politician or government official on American soil at the direction of the Iranian regime.
“This foiled scheme, motivated by vengeance for US actions against the Iranian regime, sought to strike at the heart of our democracy. May today's conviction illustrate the FBI's resolute commitment to protect the homeland from the Iranian regime's craven efforts to wage terror on the American people,” he said.
Merchant began working for the IRGC in late 2022 or early 2023, when he received training in intelligence tradecraft, including countersurveillance. Later in 2023, he was sent to the United States to look for potential IRGC recruits in the country. Merchant testified that he knew that the IRGC was a designated terrorist organisation and, throughout this period, he repeatedly travelled to Iran to meet with his IRGC handler.
Merchant testified that in 2024, he was sent back to the United States with a new mission of recruiting hitmen to arrange the murder of one of three specific US government officials and politicians.
He admitted that he was tasked by the IRGC to kill a US government official or politician to avenge the death of Soleimani, who was killed in January 2020 by a US airstrike ordered by Trump. To that end, Merchant contacted an acquaintance in New York who he thought could help him with his scheme. That person instead reported Merchant’s conduct to law enforcement and became a confidential source.
In early June 2024, Merchant met the source in New York and explained his assassination plot, telling him that he had an ongoing opportunity for him and then made a “finger gun” motion with his hand, indicating that the opportunity was related to a killing. Merchant further stated that the intended victims would be “targeted here” in the United States.
Merchant instructed the source to arrange meetings with individuals whom he could hire to carry out these actions. At that meeting, Merchant began planning potential assassination scenarios and quizzed the source on how he would kill a target in the various scenarios. Specifically, Merchant asked the source to explain how the target would die in different scenarios. Merchant told the source that there would be “security all around” the person.
Merchant stated that the assassination would occur after he left the United States, and he would communicate with the source from overseas using code words. The source asked whether Merchant had spoken to the unidentified “party” back home with whom Merchant was working. He responded that he had and that the party back home told him to “finalise” the plan and leave the United States. Merchant would later testify that the “party” was his IRGC handler, the Justice Department said.
In mid-June, Merchant met with the purported hitmen, who were in fact undercover US law enforcement officers in New York. Merchant advised the undercover officers that he was looking for three services from them: theft of documents, arranging protests at political rallies and for them to kill a “political person” in the United States.
Merchant stated that the hitmen would receive instructions on who to kill after Merchant had departed the United States. Throughout this period, Merchant performed internet searches for the locations of political rallies and sent a report back to his IRGC handler regarding security protocols at rallies.
He then began arranging means to obtain USD 5,000 in cash to pay the undercover officers as an advance payment for the assassination, which he eventually received with assistance from an individual overseas.
On June 21, 2024, Merchant met with the undercover officers in New York and paid them the USD 5,000 advance, after which one of the undercover officers stated, “now we’re bonded,” to which Merchant responded “yes.”
The undercover officer then stated, “Now we know we’re going forward. We’re doing this,” to which Merchant responded “Yes, absolutely.”
Merchant subsequently made flight arrangements and planned to leave the United States in July 2024 when law enforcement agents placed him under arrest before he could leave the country.
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Iran's president defies US demands while apologising for strikes on neighbours
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Dubai (AP): Iran's president said on Saturday that a demand by the United States for an unconditional surrender is a “dream that they should take to their grave.”
President Masoud Pezeshkian made the statement in a prerecorded address aired by state television.
He also apologised for Iran's attacks on regional countries, insisting that Tehran would halt them and suggesting they were caused by miscommunication in the ranks.
The comments came as intense Iranian fire targeted the Gulf Arab states early Saturday as Israel and the United States kept up their airstrikes targeting the Islamic Republic. There were repeated attacks Saturday morning on Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
There was no foreseeable end to the fighting. US President Donald Trump's administration approved a new USD 151 million arms sale to Israel after Trump said he would not negotiate with Iran without its “unconditional surrender”, and US officials warned of a forthcoming bombing campaign they said would be the most intense yet in the weeklong conflict.
Iran's UN ambassador said the country would “take all necessary measures” to defend itself.
Associated Press video showed explosions flashing and smoke rising over western Tehran as Israel said it had begun a broad wave of strikes. Also, early Saturday, loud booms sounded in Jerusalem, and incoming missiles from Iran had people heading to bomb shelters across Israel.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Israel's emergency services.
The US and Israel have battered Iran with strikes, targeting its military capabilities, leadership and nuclear programme. The stated goals and timelines for the war have repeatedly shifted, as the US has at times suggested it seeks to topple Iran's government or elevate new leadership from within.
Iran strikes Gulf States as fighting spreads
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In a sign of the widening nature of the conflict, sirens sounded early Saturday in Bahrain as Iranian attacks targeted the island kingdom. And Saudi Arabia said it destroyed drones headed toward its vast Shaybah oil field and shot down a ballistic missile launched toward Prince Sultan Air Base, which hosts US forces.
In Dubai, several blasts were heard Saturday morning, and the government said it had activated air defences. Passengers waiting for flights out at Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel, found themselves ushered down into train tunnels at the sprawling airfield after the alert sounded.
Later that morning, long-haul carrier Emirates said that ”all flights to and from Dubai have been suspended until further notice."
Qatar's energy minister, Saad al-Kaabi, warned in an interview with the Financial Times that the war could “bring down the economies of the world,” predicting a widespread shutdown of Gulf energy exports that could send oil to USD 150 a barrel.
The price for a barrel of benchmark US crude rose above USD 90 on Friday for the first time in more than two years.
Writing for the Qatar-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera, a regional analyst warned Iran was making “a strategic miscalculation of historic proportions.” Al Jazeera, a pan-Arab satellite news network owned and funded by Qatar's government, has been used in the past to signal Doha's opinions on regional matters.
Sultan al-Khulaifi, a senior researcher at the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, wrote: "By spreading the conflict to the Gulf, Tehran is doing precisely what Israel could not do alone: steering the war away from the Israeli-Iranian axis and transforming it into a confrontation between Iran and its Arab neighbours.”
On Saturday, the defence minister of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's army chief met to discuss ways to stop the attacks coming from Iran, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported. Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, a son of King Salman, talked with Field Marshal Asim Munir in Riyadh about the Iranian attacks. Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan have signed a mutual defence pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both.
Russia is providing information to Iran, officials say
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Russia has provided Iran with information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, according to two officials familiar with US intelligence on the matter.
The people, who were not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the US intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information.
Still, it's the first indication that Moscow has sought to get involved in the war.
Trump says the US will help rebuild Iran once it has ACCEPTABLE leaders
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In a social media post on Friday, Trump said: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!" After a surrender, “and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s),” he wrote, the US and its allies will help rebuild Iran, making it “economically bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
Those comments were likely to raise further questions about the endgame of the war. The fighting has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, more than 200 in Lebanon and around a dozen in Israel, according to officials in those countries. Six US troops have been killed.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on social media that “some countries” had begun mediation efforts, without elaborating.
Iranian state television reported Friday that a leadership council had started discussing how to convene the country's Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.
US official warns that the biggest bombing' is coming
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US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a television interview on Friday that the “biggest bombing campaign” of the war was still to come.
Israel has said that over the past week, it has heavily bombed an extensive underground bunker that Iranian leaders had planned to use during the hostilities.
New information surfaced suggesting that a deadly Feb. 28 explosion at a school in the Iranian city of Minab, some 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) southeast of Tehran, was likely caused by US airstrikes. The information included satellite images, expert analysis, a US official and public information released by US and Israeli military forces.
Iranian state media has said more than 165 people were killed in the blast, most of them children.
Iran has blamed Israel and the US for the explosion. Neither country has accepted responsibility, though Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the US is investigating.
Fighting with Israeli troops is reported in eastern Lebanon
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The Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah said its fighters clashed with an Israeli force that landed late Friday in the mountains of eastern Lebanon.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said Saturday that at least 16 people were killed in subsequent Israeli strikes and another 35 were wounded.
Israel did not acknowledge the fighting, and its military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Israel has carried out waves of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a large presence, but which is also home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Lebanon's Health Ministry says over 200 people have been killed by Israeli strikes since Monday and over 800 wounded.
Roads in the Lebanese capital were choked with evacuating traffic as smoke rose over the city's southern districts. Two hospitals evacuated patients and staff.
“What can we do? We prayed here under the tree. During the night, we slept in the car because there is no place to stay,” Jihan Shehadeh, one of the tens of thousands of displaced, said.
