Why Does Iran Keep Sending Amateurs to Conduct Assassinations in the U.S.?
11th August 2024
The murder-for-hire charge announced this week against a Pakistani national linked in court papers to Iran marked the fourth alleged Iranian assassination plot inside the United States over the past three years thwarted by the FBI, in what the attorney general called a “persistent” and “brazen” campaign by Iran to punish its enemies on American soil.
Among the questions raised by that remarkable, and remarkably unsuccessful, purported campaign: Why do the Iranians keep sending amateurs who seemingly get caught so easily? And what is the U.S. doing to deter this alleged rogue behavior by Iran?
Law enforcement officials and experts who study the Iranian regime say it’s more difficult than most people realize for Iran to carry out a covert operation inside the U.S. Iran has no embassy here to host intelligence officers, and the U.S. intelligence and border protection agencies have been fairly successful at keeping out Iranians with ties to that country’s military and spy services.