WASHINGTON (AP) – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on an Iranian Revolutionary Guard official and others it says were involved in broad plots to kill former national security adviser John Bolton and others around the world, including at least one additional US government official.
The alleged 2021 plot against Bolton, one of the most well-documented of the alleged assassination efforts, is part of what U.S. prosecutors and former government officials describe as ongoing efforts by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to kill officials in the ‘was Trump behind a 2020 US airstrike that killed. the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani.
In all, Thursday’s sanctions charge three individuals based in Iran and Turkey, a company affiliated with Iran’s Quds Force and two senior officials of Iran’s Intelligence Organization in global plots to kill former US officials, journalists and Iranian dissidents abroad, according to the US Treasury Department. .
Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement that the United States is focused on disrupting the plots of the Iranian military, which has “engaged in numerous assassination attempts and other acts of violence and intimidation against those they consider enemies.” of the Iranian regime”.
Those sanctioned include Revolutionary Guard official Shahram Poursafi. US prosecutors charged Poursafi last year with attempted murder for hire, saying he worked to find a US-based person willing to kill Bolton somewhere in the Washington area for 300,000 dollars
Federal prosecutors say Poursafi also talked about “extra work” for which he was offering $1 million. Axios reported last year that the second target was former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, citing sources close to Pompeo. US officials have reported “serious and credible” threats against the lives of Pompeo and his top aide in Iran.
Poursafi remains wanted by the FBI in the alleged plots.
Prosecutors say the plot against Bolton developed more than a year after Soleimani, feared in the Middle East as the architect of Tehran’s wars and assassinations, was killed in a US airstrike while traveling from from Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.
After the strike, Bolton, who had left his post at the White House at the time, tweeted: “I hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran.”
Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook played a role in the Trump administration’s decision to kill Suleimani and led the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran after President Donald Trump withdraws the US from the 2014 nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.
The State Department has been paying more than $2 million a month to provide round-the-clock security for Pompeo and Hook since they left office, and most recently extended that protection in early May, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
On May 3, Deputy Secretary of State for Management Richard Verma notified Congress that he had determined that threats against Pompeo and Hook “remain.” Those threats, he said in identical notices for both men, remain “serious and credible threats by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power arising out of duties (that) performed … while employed by the Department of ‘State”.
The sanctions block all access to U.S. money and property of the targeted individuals and prohibit Americans and American companies from doing business with them.
