Iran-Linked Terror Plot Foiled in Washington DC
Federal officials announced Tuesday that an Iran-linked terror plot on Washington D.C. has been disrupted.
FBI and DEA agents foiled a plan to commit a “significant terrorist act in the United States,” officials told ABC News.
It is believed that the plot was conceived in Iran by the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to official statements.
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The plotted attack would have included bomb attacks on both the Saudi Arabian and Israeli embassies in Washington D.C.
The attack was also supposed to include the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S., Adel Al-Jubeir.
Federal officials told ABC that the terrorist plotters were also planning a separate attack on the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The terror case, called Operation Red Coalition, began this past May when an Iranian-American from Texas, Manssor Arbabsiar, inadvertently approached a U.S. informant seeking help for an assassination.
An Iranian official, Gholam Shakuri, was also named in the five-count criminal complaint filed Tuesday in a U.S. federal court.
Arbabsiar was arrested on Sept. 29 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
The Justice Department said that Arbabsiar has confessed to his participation in the terror plot, meanwhile, Shakuri remains at large.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the plan was “conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran.”
He also called the plot a “flagrant violation of U.S. and international law,” but lauded the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies for “diligent and coordinated efforts” that were able to disrupt the plot before it could harm anyone.
The U.S. state department has listed Iran as a “state sponsor” of terror since 1984 and officials in Argentina said Iran was behind an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992.
A U.S. official told CNN that America would most likely impose more sanctions against Iran and take this issue up with the United Nations Security Council as a way to hold the country accountable for the terror plot.
FBI Director Robert Mueller said the terror plot illustrated that “we live in a world where borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant.”
