Opposition Report Names Iranians Behind Failed Assassinations of Americans, Israelis

Iran International, an opposition news channel funded by Saudi Arabia, published the identities of the Revolutionary Guards members behind plans to assassinate U.S. officials and Israeli civilians abroad.

The field commanders plotted to assassinate former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton and former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as well as Israeli civilians in Colombia and the Georgian Republic.

According to the report quoting FBI agent Randy Beck, an unnamed assassin code named Bahnam, who was not an Iranian national, arrived in Washington last January, on orders from Tehran. He was supposed to kill John Bolton in a city park, and was to receive a payment of $300,000.

Iran International also revealed the identity of the assassin sent to kill then-U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo as 46-year-old Shahram Fursafi, a member of the Revolutionary Guard Corps who traveled under the pseudonym Mehdi Rezaei.

Last August, he was formally indicted for planning the assassination of both officials. The FBI had been monitoring him for 18 months, and realized that Fursafi had reached out to an American citizen on social media and asked him to photograph Bolton in exchange for payment of between $5,000 and $10,000.

However, plans changed when another member of the IRGC asked the American to assassinate Bolton for $300,000. Furfasi then promised to grant a million dollars to the terrorist of the second mission to assassinate Pompeo.

The man, who turned out to be an informant for the FBI, turned the offer down.

Fursafi is just one of the key figures in the IRGC who was behind the plot to assassinate officials on U.S. soil. Another name revealed was Mohammad Reza Ansari, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force 840 unit stationed in Syria.

Other key figures named were Muhammad Hussein Shmerdizadeh, a senior intelligence officer in the Quds Force, and Abulfazal Alizadeh, also part of the 840 unit.