Pakistani man with strong ties to Iran charged in US with attempt to carry out assassinations

A United States Federal court in Brooklyn has charged a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran, Asif Merchant, also known as “Asif Raza Merchant,” 46, with murder-for-hire as part of a scheme to assassinate a politician or U.S. government officials on U.S. soil, including potentially former President Donald Trump.

Asif travelled to New York in June to meet with people he thought he was recruiting for carrying out assassinations, including paying $5,000 advance to two men, who turned out to be undercover law enforcement officers, Associated Press reported.

He was arrested in July after he told his would-be assassins that they would get further instruction, including the targets’ identities, in August or September after he returned to Pakistan.

“This dangerous murder-for-hire plot exposed in today’s charges allegedly was orchestrated by a Pakistani national with close ties to Iran and is straight out of the Iranian playbook,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The Associated Press also reported that Asif also indicated to his associate that he wanted a “political person” to be killed, mapping out on a napkin the different strategies on how the target could be killed.

Journalist Iftikhar Firdous posted on X, “His case file on the U.S. Justice Department’s website shows that he has a wife and children both in Iran and Pakistan while he has been consistently travelling to Iran, Syria and Iraq. This would be the second incident this year where Pakistani nationals with ties to Iranian militias in the Middle East have been arrested by the FBI.”