President Donald Trump has issued a stark warning to Iran, stating that if they were to assassinate him, they would face obliteration. This declaration came as Trump signed an executive order to increase pressure on Tehran. The US government has been monitoring Iranian threats against Trump and his administration for some time. In response to past threats, Trump ordered the killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020.
An Iranian plot to assassinate Trump before the presidential election was disrupted by the Justice Department, revealing that Iranian officials had directed Farhad Shakeri to surveil and assassinate Trump. Shakeri, an Afghan national residing in Iran, remains at large. Iranian officials have dismissed these allegations, attributing them to efforts by Israel-linked groups to complicate Iran-US relations.
Shakeri, identified as an Iranian government asset with a criminal past, was instructed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to develop a plan to kill Trump. This information was shared with the FBI, leading to the unsealing of a criminal complaint in federal court. Trump’s recent decision to revoke security protection for former officials like Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, and John Bolton, who have all faced threats from Iran due to their hardline stances against the Islamic Republic, underscores ongoing tensions between the US and Iran.