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The FBI on Tuesday placed a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on its Most Wanted Terrorists list for allegedly soliciting the murders of two former U.S. government officials.
Shahram Poursafi is accused of hiring individuals to kill the officials between October 2021 and April 2022, according to the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Court documents detail an alleged plot targeting former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
The assassination plot was believed to have been initiated in retaliation for the January 2020 killing of IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani, who led a unit of the Qods Force, one of the IRGC’s five divisions responsible for developing and carrying out lethal plotting operations.
Poursafi allegedly worked on behalf of the division and sought to pay individuals in the U.S. $300,000 to carry out the assassination.
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Separately, the FBI released wanted posters seeking information on three alleged IRGC officials from the same Qods Force unit. The individuals were identified as Mohammad Reza Ansari, Abolfazl Alizadeh and Mohammad Hossein Shamoradizadeh.
Ansari is an alleged deputy who has supported IRGC operations in Syria. He also allegedly planned and attempted to assassinate two former U.S. government officials with the Poursafi’s support.
Alizadeh and Shamoradizadeh are both alleged battalion commanders who have participated in lethal plotting operations.
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According to a 2022 Justice Department complaint announcing the charges against Poursafi, Poursafi initially plotted the assassination by asking a U.S. resident he had previously met online to take photographs of Bolton, claiming the images were for a book he was writing.
Poursafi later offered another U.S. contact up to $300,000 to “eliminate” the former national security advisor. Poursafi also told the contact he had an additional “job” for which he would pay $1 million.
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The plot ultimately fell through as the contact was a confidential human source working with the FBI, often considered civilian informants.
Poursafi was charged with using communication or travel networks across state lines to carry out a paid assassination. He was also accused of supplying resources or assistance for an international murder plot, according to a Justice Department complaint.
A special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office said the agency will continue to disrupt lethal plots and bring IRGC members to justice for threatening U.S. individuals.
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“The FBI will not stand for the IRGC’s brazen attempts to silence, harm or murder activists, dissidents, journalists, public officials or anyone else it deems a threat,” Gregory Heeb of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division said.
