General

U.S. foils alleged Iranian plot to kill Saudi ambassador

Planned attack on Saudi officials in the U.S. also included bombing Washington embassy

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday that federal authorities had disrupted a plot by the Iranian government to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. and to bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington. Holder said the two men charged in the alleged plot have links to the secretive Quds Force, a division of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that has carried out operations in other countries. Court documents suggest the assassination would have been carried by men with ties to a Mexican drug cartel, but who were in fact confidential sources for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Manssor Arbab Arbabsiar, who was arrested September 29, and Gholam Shakuri, who remains at large, have been charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. specifically explosives; and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism.

New York Times

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