US president Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that Iran would be “obliterated” if it attempted to assassinate him, saying he had instructed his advisers to take action.
Speaking while signing an executive order to impose maximum pressure on Tehran, he said, “If they did that, they would be obliterated… there won’t be anything left.”
If Trump were assassinated, vice president JD Vance would assume the presidency and would not be required to follow Trump’s directives. Federal authorities have been tracking Iranian threats against Trump and other officials for years.
Trump directed the 2020 strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force.
A threat from Iran against Trump led to increased security in the days before a July campaign rally in Pennsylvania, where he was shot in the ear, according to US officials. However, officials at the time said they did not believe Iran was involved in the assassination attempt.
In November, the Justice Department announced that it had foiled an Iranian plot to kill Trump before the presidential election.
The department accused Iranian officials of directing 51-year-old Farhad Shakeri in September to conduct surveillance and ultimately assassinate Trump. Shakeri remains at large in Iran.
Iranian officials dismissed the allegation, with foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei claiming it was a plot by Israel-linked groups to complicate Iran-US relations.
According to the complaint, investigators learned of the plan from Shakeri, who is accused of being an Iranian government asset. He had previously served time in American prisons for robbery and allegedly maintained a network of criminal associates recruited by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots.
Shakeri, an Afghan national living in Iran, told the FBI that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard ordered him last September to pause other work and develop a plan within seven days to surveil and assassinate Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
Recently, Trump revoked government security protection for former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, his top aide Brian Hook, and former national security adviser John Bolton. All three had faced Iranian threats due to their hardline stance against the Islamic Republic during Trump’s first administration.
With AP inputs
