US Accuses Individual Linked to IRGC of Conspiracy to Kill Trump; Iran Denies Allegations

The US Justice Department has charged an individual named Farhad Shakri and two accomplices with connections to plans by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assassinate Donald Trump, the elected President of the United States, along with other conspiracies; the Iranian Foreign Ministry has rejected these allegations. According to a criminal complaint released on Friday, November 9, by a federal court in Manhattan, an unnamed IRGC official had instructed Farhad Shakri to prepare a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Donald Trump. Merrick Garland, the US Attorney General, confirmed that the US judicial system has charged an individual who was 'tasked by the Iranian regime to lead a network of criminals to carry out plans related to killing targeted individuals, including the elected President Donald Trump.' Garland stated in his announcement: 'Few actors in the world pose as serious a threat to US national security as Iran.' Meanwhile, Ismail Baqai, spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, described the allegations of the Islamic Republic's involvement in the assassination plot against Donald Trump as 'baseless' and claimed that the source of these allegations was Israel, aiming to 'complicate issues between the US and Iran.' According to court documents, Farhad Shakri immigrated to the US as a child but was ultimately deported in 2008 after spending 14 years in prison for theft, and is believed to currently reside in Iran. American media, including the Associated Press, have identified Farhad Shakri as an Afghan citizen. Court documents reveal that Shakri voluntarily participated in five phone interviews with the FBI over the past 40 days while residing in Tehran. In these interviews, he admitted that an IRGC official had instructed him months ago to set aside other plans entrusted to him and focus solely on the assassination of Donald Trump. The report states that when Shakri told his contact that such an operation would require significant funding, he was told: 'We have already spent a lot of money... so money is not an issue.' According to court documents, Shakri informed the FBI that an IRGC official had asked him on October 7 of this year to submit a plan to kill Donald Trump within seven days. He stated that if this plan was not executed within this timeframe, the IRGC's plan would be postponed until after the elections, as the official 'predicted that Trump would lose the election and that assassination would be easier afterward.' Shakri indicated that he participated in the FBI interviews to find a way to reduce the sentence of an individual currently serving time in US prisons through cooperation with law enforcement. The identity of this inmate is not mentioned in the court documents, and he is referred to only as 'Person-1.' Previously, US officials had spoken of Iran's 'ongoing efforts' to target American officials, including Donald Trump and several members of his former administration, in retaliation for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC's Quds Force. The federal complaint in New York has charged three individuals: 51-year-old Farhad Shakri, 49-year-old Carlyle Rivera, and 36-year-old Jonathan Ludholt. These three are accused of pursuing plans to kill not only Donald Trump but also, at the request of the IRGC, plans to kill three other individuals. According to American media, the other three individuals targeted by these defendants include an Iranian-American activist and two American Jews. The Iranian-American activist is referred to in court documents only as 'Victim Number One' and is noted as a serious critic of the Islamic Republic who has repeatedly been the target of Iranian government plots for kidnapping or assassination. Meanwhile, Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist and political activist, announced that the FBI informed her that two men were arrested for attempting to kill her at Fairfield University, 'where she was scheduled to speak.' Alinejad wrote on social media platform X: 'I learned that the person assigned to assassinate Donald Trump was also given a mission to kill me on US soil.' She also wrote: 'I urge the US government and the future President of the United States to be tough on terrorism; the Islamic Republic only understands one language: the language of pressure.' According to court documents, Farhad Shakri promised his two accomplices that he would pay them $100,000 in exchange for the assassination of the Iranian-American activist. Based on the judge's ruling, the detention of Carlyle Rivera and Jonathan Ludholt, both from New York, has been extended until the trial, and charges against Farhad Shakri have been announced in absentia.