Pakistani National with Links to Iran Arrested for Alleged Assassination Plot on American Soil
A Pakistani national with links to Iran has been arrested for allegedly plotting a political assassination on American soil. Asif Merchant, 46, was admitted into the United States via immigration parole for the “significant public benefit,” according to multiple federal law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation.
Merchant flew into Houston in April, where he encountered U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. The FBI sponsored his parole for “security interests,” the sources said. The FBI had been monitoring Merchant before his arrival in the U.S. and needed him to physically enter the country in order to build a case and make an arrest.
Merchant was arrested on July 12 while trying to leave the country, federal prosecutors said. He had flown to New York City shortly after arriving in Houston and worked with a person he believed to be a hit man in a murder-for-hire plot targeting a political figure in the United States.
The Justice Department stated that the hit man contacted the FBI and became a confidential source for the agency. Merchant was potentially targeting former President Trump, although the plot has no ties to the incident where Trump was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13.
Merchant claimed to have a wife and children in both Iran and Pakistan. Iran has not confirmed or denied any involvement in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland commented on the case, saying, “The Justice Department has brought multiple cases against individuals working on behalf of the Iranian government to lethally target Americans in the United States. But as I said last week, we expect that these threats will continue and that these cases will not be the last.”
Security concerns related to Trump and his former advisers have been raised before, particularly in relation to possible retaliation from Tehran for the 2020 airstrike that killed Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Iranian Permanent Mission to the United Nations stated that they have not received any reports on the matter from the U.S. Government, but emphasized that the alleged modus operandi contradicts Iran’s policy of legally prosecuting those responsible for the killing of General Soleimani.
