Live stream of the press conference here. AG Eric Holder is announcing charges against two people. More to follow.
Update: FBI Director Robert Mueller says that Iranian individuals sought to work with a drug cartel to attempt to assassinate an American official.
Update: Make that a Saudi official, on American soil. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard is allegedly behind the plot. ABC News reports:
FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States” tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today.
The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C.
Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials.
The stunning allegations come against a backdrop of longstanding tensions between Iran and the United States and Saudi Arabia. In the last year, Saudi Arabia has attempted to build an anti-Iran alliance to push back against perceived aggression by Iran in the region.
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The Iranian-American, identified by federal officials as Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, reportedly claimed he was being “directed by high-ranking members of the Iranian government,” including a cousin who was “a member of the Iranian army but did not wear a uniform,” according to a person briefed on the details of the case. Counter-terrorism officials said they believe the cousin may be part of the special operations unit of the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds force.
Arbabsiar and a second man, Gohlam Shakuri, an Iranian official, were named in a five-count criminal complaint filed Tuesday afternoon in federal court in New York. They were charged with conspiracy to kill a foreign official and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, a bomb, among other counts.
The complaint also refers to another Iranian official but does not name him.
Update: In the presser, US officials repeatedly said that they would “hold Iran accountable” for this plot, which includes elements of the Quds force, but when pressed by a reporter’s question, AG Holder did not specify what holding Iran accountable will mean.
Update: It’s interesting that the charges are being brought in New York. The plot action seems to have mostly taken place in Texas, with the would-be assassin meeting with DEA agents posing as Zeta drug cartel operatives. Is New York an operational or political choice? And what does the Zeta role say about Texans’ desire border security, which has been openly mocked by the president?
Update: Not to put too fine a point on things, but this was a cross-border terror attack in the making. Some of us have warned about this possibility for years, with the rise of the Mexican drug cartels and the encroachment of Hizballah into Mexico serving to heighten concern. Contrary to FBI Director Mueller’s statement today, that national borders have become “increasingly irrelevant,” such borders are more relevant than ever. Open borders are an invitation to lawlessness and mass murder.
Update: Like Ace, I’m not one to question the timing. But I do have a question or two about Eric Holder.
Why is that Eric Holder knows absolutely nothing about covert operations that end in disaster, but is presenting himself as a details guy in a covert operation that ended successfully?
Kind of convenient that he’s involved in the successes, but cannot for the life of him even remember the mere existence of operations gone awry.
This has to be a joke. Why on Earth would they provoke the USA by doing it on our soil?
Have you seen who’s in office? Weakness invites aggressiveness.
Well, it’s not like Holder might have a reason to go forward with something like this on flimsy grounds to distract from anything else….
*whistles*
I wonder if the would-be assassins’ guns trace back to Fast & Furious.
Boy, that’s a really conveniently timed good news story for the DOJ and FBI given all the Fast and Furious news coverage breaking this week.
One has to wonder at the timing of this news release. It is not uncommon to uncover a terrorist plot in the making. It is also not unusual for information on these plots to be released to the press. What is unusual is that most of the plots where info has been released had no obvious state sponsers.
The timing of the release of info is a little suspicious and it does have a certain wag the dog feel to it but there is no reason to doubt the truth of this story. What would be interesting to know is if this is a first or is it the first the public hears of this type of threat?
DEA?
Translation: leave Holder alone, he’s got serious shiite to deal with.
Wag the dog.
And what does it say about a potential connection to F&F? There’s a very real possibility that F&F supplied serious weaponage to Iranian agents. Maybe that’s why they want to keep this out of the Southwest?
I find it hard to believe drug cartels would have sanctioned or been involved any action like this. These Iranians would be putty in Zeta’s hands. Probably only reason they are alive at all is that they found a DEA agent, not a Zeta. If a terror act could legitimately be linked to our porous southern border, that border will close tighter than proverbial frog butt, thus hurting business in a big way.
Nonsense. Iranian money is green. The Zetas, like any criminal syndicate, are more than happy to do business with the guy with lots of bucks, and plenty more where that came from.
On the filing of the criminal complaint in New York: the nexus between New York and the defendants is wire transfers of funds from one or more overseas bank(s) to the confidential source’s bank account. The underlying reason for SDNY is likely tactical: that US Attorney’s office and that US District Court are probably the most experienced in handling these sorts of terrorist prosecutions. Educated speculation.
Furthermore, the FBI National Security/Counter-Terrorism section at NY Field Office (FO)is much larger and therefore likely more capable than at most other FOs. At most Field Offices this program is led by an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (SAC). At NYFO it is led by a full SAC.
You know, the criminal complaint posted at CBS makes for intriguing and frightening reading. And the thing I found most interesting was that besides, Gholam Shakuri, two other unnamed Iranian officials were also involved in the plot. One of those two Manssor has identified from government mugshots. This thing is terrible, in the elemental meaning of that word.
Here’s a link to the criminal complaint. Barry Rubin linked to it in his post here at PJM.
Eric Holder is going to hold someone accountable for plotting with the Mexican drug cartels?
An Irony Curtain has descended on our southern border.
The timing of this particular deal doesn’t smell that bad, but it certainly appears that the marxist administration is fleshing out an anti-terrorism resume after 2 years of doing nothing whil bashing Bush for fighting terrorism for 7 years.
I question THAT.
I also expect Obama to claim credit for the sophisticated virus that slowed down Iran’s nukes. It will happen close to Nov, 2012. He won’t be able to resist it, even if it was totally Israel that managed it.