(Image source from: Hindustantimes.com)

More than a week after the US and Israel's one-sided announcement of war on Iran and the killing of its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, news has surfaced that connects Tehran to rumored attempts to assassinate President Donald Trump. According to The New York Post, there were two unsuccessful attempts from 2024 showing how the Iranian government supposedly hired “kill teams” to target Trump. In one attempt, Iran allegedly instructed a spy to organize a “kill team” to assassinate Trump while he was still running for president in the 2024 election. The spy managed to recruit two hitmen based in the US, but they were later caught. One of them, Asif Raza Merchant, a Pakistani man claimed to have connections to Iran, was convicted last week for planning to kill Trump or other US officials as revenge for the American attack that killed Revolutionary Guards commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020, the prosecutors reported. Yigal Carmon, a retired colonel from the Israeli Defense Forces, told New York Post, "They are definitely killers, like the mafia. They have a list of people they want to eliminate and have sent many spies to arrange these killings. "

In 2024, the US Justice Department accused Farhad Shakeri, 51, of being involved in a supposed plan ordered by the top Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran to kill Trump. Identified as an asset of the IRGC living in Tehran, Shakeri recruited two people from New York - Carlisle Rivera, known as Pop, and Jonathon Loadholt, for this scheme. Court documents reveal that Shakeri informed an IRGC official that it "would take a lot of money to kill Trump. " The official replied, "We have already spent a lot of money… so money is not a concern," suggesting to Shakeri that the Iranian government had previously invested heavily in assassination attempts on Trump and was ready to spend more. Additionally, Shakeri was instructed to create a plan within a week to kill Trump during the 2024 election campaign. The IRGC official also warned that if Shakeri did not succeed, they would hold off on their plan to assassinate Trump until after the election, as he would likely lose and become an easier target.

Shakeri informed the FBI that he did not intend to propose a scheme to assassinate Trump within the given period. While he was still in Iran and faced trial in his absence, Shakeri’s accomplices were found guilty of hiring a murderer. According to the NY Post, Riviera received a 15-year prison sentence, and Loadholt is set to receive his sentence next month. The US military "located and killed" Shakeri, as confirmed by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth during a press conference last week. In another situation, Asif Raza Merchant testified in his trial on Wednesday that he felt compelled to join the scheme to assassinate Trump to protect his family in Tehran from the IRGC, stating that he believed he would be apprehended before anyone was harmed. Merchant, who was arrested in 2024, stated that he was never told to kill anyone specific, but his Iranian contact mentioned three individuals related to the plot—Trump, former US President Joe Biden, and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley. Merchant could face a life sentence after being found guilty of international terrorism and murder for hire.