US uncovers Iran ‘plot’ to kill John Bolton

The US Justice Department yesterday said it had uncovered an Iranian plot to kill former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton, and announced charges against a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Justice Department said 45-year-old Shahram Poursafi had offered to pay an individual in the United States $300,000 to kill Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations.

The Justice Department said that plan was likely set in retaliation for the US killing of top Guard commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020.

Soleimani was head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force and personally maintained its network of allies and proxies across the Gulf region. He was targeted by a US drone strike just after he landed at Baghdad's airport on January 7, 2020.

Since that strike Tehran has vowed to extract revenge, and US officials have said that the country had been looking to kill one or more US officials.

Another official believed on Tehran's target list was Mike Pompeo, who was secretary of state at the time of the assassination of Soleimani, and before that director of the Central Intelligence Agency.