The FBI issued an alert last Friday that resembles a spy thriller, but unfortunately, the stakes are genuine.
According to the agency's Miami field office, agents are seeking information on Majid Dastjani Farahani. A suspected member of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Farahani is accused of recruiting individuals for targeted killings inside the United States to avenge the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer Qasem Soleimani. (RELATED: Foreign Crime Ring Caught Blackmailing Trump – Will He Comply?)
From 1998 to 2020, Soleimani commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. Tasked with overseeing Iran's clandestine and extraterritorial operations, some believed Soleimani was the right-hand man of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
He was targeted and killed in a U.S. drone strike ordered by then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 3, 2020. (RELATED: Missiles Destroy Ship Carrying Lethal Cargo)
It is unclear why the Miami office issued the warning, but Semafor noted that Farahani speaks Farsi, French, Spanish and English and often travels between Iran and Venezuela:
The Iranian government has repeatedly vowed over the past four years to avenge the 2020 death of Major General Qasem Soleimani – a commander of Iran's elite Qods Force – whom the Trump administration assassinated in Baghdad using a drone strike on his convoy. The DoJ indicted members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) in 2022 for allegedly plotting to murder Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, who served in the White House in the months leading up to Soleimani's death.
U.S. officials told Semafor they believe Pompeo and Trump's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, are also on Tehran's hit list. The U.S. government is currently providing both men with around-the-clock security due to the severity of the threat.
The FBI said Friday that Farahani, 42, was recruiting individuals “as revenge” for Soleimani's death and to conduct “surveillance activities focused on religious sites, businesses, and other facilities in the United States.” The Treasury Department sanctioned Farahani in December.
The Biden administration's backing of Israel in its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas – which is armed and funded by Iran – has significantly raised tensions between Washington and Tehran. An Iranian-backed militia killed three U.S. soldiers during a January drone strike on an American military base in Jordan. But any Iranian operation that kills a current or former U.S. official, or a political dissident, on American soil could cross a red line that leads Washington to retaliate against Tehran directly.
If reelected, Trump promises to reinstate his hard-line policies on Iran, including striking back hard at terrorists who kill Americans.
“If you spill a drop of American blood, we spill a gallon of yours,” he vowed in a speech last year.
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