The United States said yesterday it had broken up a “chilling” plot planned high up in the Iranian government to assassinate the Saudi envoy to Washington and vowed to hold Tehran to account.
In an explosive twist to the bitter US showdown with the Islamic Republic, the Justice Department charged two men with conspiring with Iranian government factions to blow up Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir on American soil.
“The complaint alleges that this conspiracy was conceived, sponsored and directed from Iran and constitutes a flagrant violation of US and international law,” said US Attorney General Eric Holder.
The plot against Jubeir, known as Saudi King Abdullah’s closest advisor on foreign affairs, infringes a convention that “explicitly protects diplomats from being harmed,” he said.
“In addition to holding these individual conspirators accountable for their alleged role in this plot, the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions,” he said.
An aide to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed the allegations as a “prefabricated scenario” designed to “turn public attention away from domestic problems within the United States.”
As well as deepening the fury between Washington and Tehran, news of the plot could also sow even deeper distrust between fierce Gulf antagonists Iran and Saudi Arabia, amid the international standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program.
The criminal complaint named Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized US citizen holding both Iranian and US passports, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran’s Quds Force, a unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in the plot. Mr Shakuri remains at large while Mr Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29 at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport and was to appear in court later yesterday in Manhattan.
Holder said the alleged plot was “conceived, sponsored and directed from Iran.”
“This was directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government, and specifically, senior members of the Quds Force, which is a part of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian military.
“High-up officials in those agencies ... an integral part of the Iranian government, were responsible for this plot.”
The exact identity of the accused Iranian officials in the Quds force and the Iranian government, which Washington has already identified as a state sponsor of terrorism, was not clear.