Israel’s Mossad says it stopped Iran plot to kill US general
Israel’s Mossad spy agency has claimed it recently thwarted an Iranian assassin’s plot to murder a US general stationed in Germany, an Israeli diplomat in Turkey and a journalist in France.
Mossad agents said the man they apprehended late last month on Iranian soil is an alleged gang member with ties to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday.
The suspect, Mansour Rasouli, 52, admitted during the April 30 interrogation that he’d been assigned to carry out the triple assassination, the outlet said.
Iran was reportedly willing to pay more than $1 million for the targets.
Rasouli, however, has since claimed he was tortured and coerced into giving his confession, according to the London-based TV outlet Iran International.
“Criminals abducted me … They put a bag over my head and took me to an unknown location,” Rasouli said.
“They told me they’d kill me and my family and tortured me severely. They told me I had to say everything they told me — that I was an emissary of the Revolutionary Guards and that I was sent to kill people in Europe and Turkey.”
The State Department didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on the so-called plot to kill a US general.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month there was an “ongoing threat” against past and present American officials from the IRGC.
When asked if it was true that the IRGC was trying to murder US officials, Blinken said, “I’m not sure what I can say in an open setting … Let me say generically, there is an ongoing threat against American officials both present and past.”
Blinken’s remarks came after it was revealed the State Department was paying more than $2 million a month to provide 24-hour security for ex-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook due to “serious and credible” threats from Iran.
The IRGC was designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the US under the Trump administration.
The unprecedented move was part of former President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure Iran into ceasing its suspected involvement in terror plots and support of proxy groups such as Hezbollah.
Since President Biden took office, Iran has been demanding the removal of all Trump-era sanctions, including the terrorist designation.