US disrupts Iran-tied plot to kill Saudi ambassador to US, bomb embassies
 

WASHINGTON -- Two men have been charged in connection with a $1.5 million plot directed by elements of the Iranian government to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Holder said Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, a naturalized US citizen who holds both Iranian and US passports, was arrested in New York City on Sept. 29 in connection with the plot. Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran's Qods Force, a special operations unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Gorps, remains at large.


The attorney general said the plot represented a "flagrant violation of US and international law" and added the US was committed to holding Iran accountable.

A senior State Department official told FOX News the US has "increased our sanctions on individuals within the Iranian government who are associated with this plot and Iran's support for terrorism."

Arbabsiar, Shakuri and other Iran-based conspirators allegedly began plotting the assassination in the spring of 2011.

In May, Arbabsiar allegedly met in Mexico with a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informant whom he believed was an associate of a drug cartel. According to the criminal complaint, Arbabsiar asked the informant about his knowledge of C-4 explosives and said he was interested in attacking a Saudi embassy.

In subsequent meetings in June and July, the informant told Arbabsiar he would need to use four men to carry out the assassination and requested $1.5 million in payment for the plot. With Shakuri's approval, Arbabsiar later wired $100,000 into a US bank account as a down payment and promised the remainder of the payment would be made following the assassination, the Justice Department said.

During the meetings, when the informant raised the possibility that innocent bystanders could die in the bombing attack aimed at al-Jubeir, Arbabsiar dismissed the concerns as "no big deal."

Arbabsiar allegedly agreed to travel to Mexico as collateral for the final installment of the $1.5 million fee. When he flew to Mexico on or about Sept. 28, he was refused entry and placed on a return flight to his last point of departure, the Justice Department said.

Arbabsiar was arrested by federal agents during a flight layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sept. 29. Several hours after his arrest, he allegedly confessed to participating in the plot.

Arbabsiar told US officials he had been recruited, funded and directed by men he believed were senior officials in Iran's Qods Force. In October, he made phone calls at the direction of US officials to Shakuri, who allegedly confirmed the plot should move forward as quickly as possible.

Arbabsiar and Shakuri are charged with conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism transcending national boundaries, among other charges.

Arbabsiar is scheduled to make his initial appearance Tuesday before a federal court in Manhattan. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on all of the charges.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/nationa...neTfEWlVnMlBJO

If Holder's involved there is probably a fish somewhere and a body (or two) under a bus...never let a good crisis go to waste, especially when Iran is involved. :munchin

Hmmmm...............:rolleyes:

Big Teddy :munchin

wow - what curious timing....and on the day AG Holder is being subpeoned (however the hell you spell it) by Congress.

I'm sure it is pure coincidence.....:rolleyes:

Interesting. Bombing the embassy of a nation that is seriously considering bombing your nuclear infrastructure, coupled with the bombing of a second country that is considering giving the first country permission to overfly their terroritory for said attack.... in the capitol of a country you have waged a proxy war against that is allied with the first and second afforementioned countries...

Yup. Sounds like its all well thought out.

I'm sure some pretty harsh letters are being drafted even as we speak. I'madinnerjacket is probably off the Christmas- ooppppssss, I mean Holiday card list now.

Good Lord, the msm is calling al Quds the "Iranian equivalent of Seal Team Six". :eek::D:D

Damn, I am glad I didn't have a cup of coffee near my keyboard! :D

On a more serious note, I posted an invitation to you all to a new site; anybeat.com, in the comedy zone . One of the threads there is dealing with this and Iranian nuclear capabilities. The problem is, they are mostly libs on the site. I have had some fun poking holes in their bubbles. Here is their version of this thread.

http://www.anybeat.com/#conversation...605d6d7e00017f

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv..._of_deadly.php

This could be an excellent dog-wagger...
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us...s.html?_r=2&hp


WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday sought to reconcile what it said was solid evidence of an Iranian plot to murder Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States with a wave of skepticism from some foreign leaders and outside experts.


Senior American officials themselves were struggling to explain why the Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, would orchestrate such a risky attack in so amateurish a manner.

The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, would not go further than to say the plot “clearly involved senior levels of the Quds Force.” But other American officials, armed with evidence such as bank transfers and intercepted telephone calls and with knowledge of how the covert unit operated in the past, said they believed that Iran’s senior leaders were likely complicit in the plot.

“It would be our assessment that this kind of operation would have been discussed at the highest levels of the regime,” said a senior American official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the government’s analysis.

American officials offered no specific evidence linking the plot to Iran’s most senior leaders. But they said it was inconceivable in Iran’s hierarchy that the leader of the shadowy Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, was not directly involved, and that the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was not aware of such a plan.

Iran’s leaders marshaled a furious formal rejection Wednesday of the American accusations, calling the case a cynical fabrication meant to vilify Iran and distract Americans from their severe economic problems. A senior member of Iran’s Parliament, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said he had “no doubt this is a new American-Zionist plot to divert the public opinion from the crisis Obama is grappling with.”

United States officials said they were exploring several theories why the Quds Force, which supplies and trains insurgents around the world, would plot an attack in Washington against a close adviser to the Saudi king, relying on an Iranian-American used-car salesman from Texas who, they said, thought he was hiring assassins from a Mexican drug gang.

The officials said the plot might indicate a shift to a more combative Iranian foreign policy toward Saudi Arabia and the United States. The United States has brought international pressure on Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran and Saudi Arabia have long waged proxy battles for influence in the Muslim world.

“The Iranians watch the Saudis roll tanks in Bahrain, and they see a key ally in Syria going down, so they step up the Quds Force,” one senior administration official said. He referred to Saudi military assistance to the Sunni monarchy of Bahrain, whose majority population shares the Shia Islam of Iran.

Iran has many trusted networks in the Middle East and has often used the Lebanese militants of Hezbollah as a proxy. But it has far fewer agents in the United States, which might have forced it to look to a far riskier proxy for the plot, officials said.

Snip

In situations such as this, Dem presidents don't apologize; they bomb aspirin factories.

Exactly.

I think once the Administration thinks this through, they will decide that it is an excellent time for military threats, if not action, against the Iranians.

TR

Caught that press conference while recuperating in the lounger; Holder had a Fast & Furious question put to him after his wonderful "Ain't We All Great" event and, just for an instant, it looked like the reporter had driven a finishing nail right into his forehead. That was the end of the Q&A.
:cool:

He only apologizes for things other people have done.:rolleyes:

I think they are going to scare the Iranians by consulting with our allies and keeping all options on the table.