Iran on Tuesday called “baseless” and “malicious” claims by US intelligence that the country had prepared a plan to assassinate Donald Trump weeks before the failed attack on Saturday that was unrelated to him.
A source from Iran’s mission to the UN – the only official Iranian channel on US soil, as there are no diplomatic relations – dismissed these accusations in statements to EFE, although he stressed that “Trump is a criminal who must be pursued and punished in a court of law.”
The crime the source refers to is the US drone assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020 (during Donald Trump’s presidency) in Baghdad; Soleimani was the commander of the Al Quds Force, an elite corps of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and as such one of Iran’s highest-ranking military officers.
“Iran has opted for the legal route to bring (Trump) to justice,” the source concluded.
According to a senior US national security official who spoke to EFE, when the secret services detected the Iranian plan weeks ago, the White House alerted both the Trump campaign and the Secret Service of the added danger, which took additional measures to protect the former president.
National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told EFE that Iran has been threatening US officials for years in revenge for the attack that Trump ordered in 2020 and that ended the life of General Qasem Soleimani.
“As we have said on numerous occasions, we have been following Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years. These threats stem from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the death of Qasem Soleimani. We consider this a matter of national security of the highest priority,” Watson said.
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2024-07-23 02:53:22