US arrests Pakistani national in alleged plot to kill Trump

A Pakistani man with ties to the Iranian government has been charged by the US Department of Justice for allegedly plotting to assassinate US government officials.

Asif Merchant, 46, is accused of attempting to hire a hitman to target US officials and politicians on American soil.

FBI investigators believe that former President Donald Trump and other current and former US government officials were the intended targets, according to the BBC's US media partner, CBS News.

Security for Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was increased in June after authorities learned of an Iranian plot to kill him, national security officials said last month.

FBI Director Christopher Wray called the scheme a “dangerous murder-for-hire plot” that is “straight out of the Iranian playbook”.

“A foreign-directed plot to kill a public official, or any US citizen, is a threat to our national security and will be met with the full might and resources of the FBI,” Mr Wray said in a statement on Tuesday.

Mr Merchant was arrested by police in July and is now in federal custody in New York. The FBI said it believes it foiled his alleged plot before any attack could be carried out.

According to the Justice Department’s indictment, Mr Merchant had initially arrived in the US from Pakistan in April after having spent time in Iran.

Upon his arrival, he allegedly contacted a person whom he believed could help him with the assassination plot. That unnamed individual later reported Mr Merchant to law enforcement.

The US Department of Justice said that Mr Merchant told the individual that he wanted him to carry out a killing by making a “finger gun” motion with his hand.

They added that he indicated it would not be a “one-time opportunity” and that individual’s services would be needed on an ongoing basis. He also said that the intended victims would be “targeted here,” on US soil.

Mr Merchant told the individual the assassination would take place after he had left the US, and that he would communicate with him from overseas using code words. He also said that an unidentified “party” back home told him to “finalise” the plan and leave the US, according to the indictment.

The suspect asked the individual to arrange a meeting with would-be assassins. The unnamed individual then connected him in June to undercover FBI agents posing as hitmen.

Mr Merchant told the undercover agents that he required them to carry out three orders: steal documents from the home of an intended assassination target, arrange protests at political rallies, and kill a “political person”.

According to the indictment, Mr Merchant told the hitmen that he would receive instructions on who to kill either in the last week of August or the first week of September.

Mr Merchant then planned to leave the US on 12 July, but was arrested by law enforcement before he could do so.

While the indictment does not mention Trump by name, sources cited by CBS News said that the former president was one of the intended targets.

Security was tightened around Trump in June after the US Secret Service and the Trump campaign were notified of an Iranian-backed plot to kill him.

The plot is unrelated to the assassination attempt on the former president at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July, which was allegedly carried out by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper on site.

Trump and officials including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have faced threats from Tehran since ordering the drone strike assassination of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran's Quds force, in Iraq in 2020.