US accuses Iranian operative of plotting to kill John Bolton

The Justice Department says the IRGC member offered $300,000 to assassinate Donald Trump’s former national security adviser. United States authorities have accused an alleged member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of plotting to assassinate former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, probably in retaliation for the killing Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani in 2020. “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, through the Defendant, tried to hatch a brazen plot: assassinate a former US official on US soil in retaliation for US actions,” Matthew Graves, US attorney for Washington, said in a statement. Glenn Carle, a former CIA intelligence officer, told Al Jazeera any response for Soleimani’s killing would have needed to target those of a “reasonably commensurate ranking” to the general “to get someone hostile to Iran and to make a statement short of actually targeting the president.” The Justice Department said Poursafi “remains at large abroad”, so he is unlikely to stand trial for the two charges he is facing, including “providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot”, which carries a sentence of as many as 15 years in jail. “Should Iran attack any of our citizens, to include those who continue to serve the United States or those who formerly served, Iran will face severe consequences.” Wednesday’s charges come as Washington and Tehran push to revive the 2015 nuclear deal that saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions against its economy.