Washington D.C., USA – On February 4, President Donald Trump announced that he had given his advisers instructions to obliterate Iran if it attempts to assassinate him.
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During an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order to impose maximum pressure on Tehran, Trump declared, “If they did that they would be obliterated. I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left.”
Tracking Iranian threats
Federal authorities have been monitoring Iranian threats against Trump and other administration officials for years. In 2020, Trump ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani, leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
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A threat on Trump’s life from Iran prompted additional security before a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot in the ear.
However, officials did not believe Iran was connected to that assassination attempt.
Thwarted assassination plot
The Justice Department announced in November that an Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election had been thwarted. Iranian officials allegedly instructed Farhad Shakeri, 51, in September to focus on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump.
Shakeri remains at large in Iran. Iranian officials dismissed the allegation, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei calling it a plot by Israel-linked circles to complicate Iran-U.S. relations.
Investigation details
According to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, Shakeri, an Afghan national living in Iran, told the FBI that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him to assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and kill Trump.
Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who had spent time in American prisons for robbery, maintained a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots.
Revoked security protection
Trump recently revoked government security protection for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, his top aide Brian Hook, and former national security adviser John Bolton.
All three have faced threats from Iran due to their hardline stances against the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration.