A 46-year-old Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, has been charged with multiple crimes, including terrorism and orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot against US government officials and politicians.
Merchant, who was arrested in July for allegedly trying to hire an assassin to kill a US politician, has ties with Iran. While court documents did not specify Merchant’s potential targets, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley obtained the FBI records, which suggested that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, President Joe Biden, and Nikki Haley were on his hit list.
Reportedly, Iran aimed to stage these assassinations to settle the score for the 2020 killing of Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian military official who was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq.
Attorney General Merrick Garland condemned Iran for endangering the security of American public officials, stating that his department would leave no stone unturned in holding individuals like Merchant accountable.
Before entering America in April, Merchant visited Iran, potentially to discuss the assassination plot with top Iranian officials. Once in the United States, Merchant met someone he believed would assist him in carrying out the assassinations, but this person informed US law enforcement about his plans.
The person Merchant contacted became a confidential informant for US law enforcement. Merchant shared detailed criminal plans with him, including stealing government documents from the target’s residence, staging protests, and assassinating the official. He wanted the source to execute his plans when he left the United States and communicate with him secretly through code words from foreign soil.
Merchant also discussed the plans of his bosses with the confidential source. He told the source that he had already spoken to the “party” back home, which had asked him to leave the United States after finalizing the plan.
Later in June, Merchant met with an undercover FBI agent posing as a hitman and told him his plans of killing a “political person” and stealing the documents.
Merchant made an advance payment of $5,000 to the undercover FBI agent and promised to reveal the target’s name after leaving the United States. He was scheduled to leave the United States on July 12, but the FBI arrested him before his departure. His potential targets included US military personnel, bureaucrats, and politicians.
FBI Director Christopher Wray described the plot as a serious national security threat and assured the public that anyone attempting such acts against Americans would face the full force of the law.
If convicted, Merchant is likely to be imprisoned for life.
The US and Iran were on the brink of a broader conflict in early 2020. In December 2019, then-President Donald Trump accused Iran of supporting violent protesters in Iraq who tried to capture the US embassy in Baghdad. The tensions peaked on January 3, 2020, when the Trump administration ordered the assassination of Soleimani, who was serving as the commander of Iranian Quds Force at the time of his killing.
