The FBI is on a manhunt for an Iranian intelligence officer allegedly overseeing a plot to assassinate current and former federal government officials as revenge for the Trump administration’s 2020 airstrike killing of an Iranian military official.
The Wanted Man
Last Friday, the agency’s Miami field office issued an alert that Majid Dastjani Farahani ‘is wanted for questioning in connection with the recruitment of individuals for various operations in the United States.’
Those operations, the alert adds, include the assassinations of ‘current and former United States Government officials as revenge for the killing of IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani.’
About The Man Who Was Killed
Major General Qassem Soleimani was the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, a specialized unit in the Revolutionary Guards, when he was killed in a drone strike at Baghdad International Airport as he was leaving by car in January 2020.
Donald Trump — as president at the time — ordered the killing, with the Department of Defense saying in a statement at the time, ‘At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.’
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‘General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,’ the statement continued, adding that Soleimani and ‘his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.’
Who is Farahani?
Farahani, the Iranian intelligence officer sought by the FBI, ‘also reportedly recruited individuals for surveillance activities focused on religious sites, businesses and other facilities in the United States,’ the FBI alleges.
‘Farahani acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security.’
According to the FBI alert, Farahani is 41 years old, has brown and gray hair, brown eyes, and speaks Farsi, English, Spanish and French. He also “has ties to or may visit Iran and Venezuela,” the agency adds.
The outlet Semafor reports that Farahani’s plot specifically focuses on Trump-era officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, who worked as Trump’s special envoy for Iran.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, Semafor reports that both men are being provided with around-the-clock security due to the nature of the threat.
