Iran's Assassins | 60 Minutes Archive
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Tensions keep rising between the US and Iran since the Israel-Hamas war began. Almost every week, Iranian-backed militias have attacked US bases in Syria and Iraq. This is the latest example and a serious escalation of Tehran's use of proxy fighters like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Tehran hires hitmen around the world to intimidate, abduct, and assassinate perceived enemies of the regime, including on US soil. A video posted online by a channel affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guard vows to kill former American government officials, including President Trump, to avenge the 2020 US assassination of terrorism mastermind Qasem Soleimani.
Threats like this have been deemed credible enough that several officials have been under round-the-clock protection, including former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Iran reportedly offered a hitman $1 million to kill him), and John Bolton, former national security adviser.
They bargained the price for me would be $300,000, which I have to say I found insulting.
So, what exactly was the plot against you? The Revolutionary Guard sought to procure either my kidnapping or my assassination, not directly by a Revolutionary Guard member, but by seeking a hitman who would carry out the job either in the US or abroad.
The FBI has an arrest warrant out for this Iranian officer, claiming he hired the hitman online to travel to Washington, corner Bolton in a garage, and kill him. The assassin turned out to be an FBI informant.
This was not internet chatter. This was a negotiation to murder an American citizen, a former government official.
Is the threat against you ongoing? We've got marked Secret Service cars that say police, United States Secret Service outside my home.
The FBI and several intelligence agencies report that Iran's efforts are becoming more frequent and bolder, often targeting vocal Iranian activists living abroad. The idea behind assassination and kidnapping plots is to keep them silent.
Masih Alinejad, a leader in the women's revolt against Iran's mandatory hijab law, fled 14 years ago and settled in Brooklyn. She encourages women in Iran to send videos of them taking off hijabs, which she spreads online to her 10 million followers, fueling the protest movement.
So, the Mullahs began to focus on you. The FBI came and told you there was a plot against you. There were like six or seven FBI agents. They told me that your life is in danger. I was like, "Okay, tell me something new," because we Iranians are used to it. But they actually said, "Nope, this time is different."
The Iranian regime hired a private investigator on US soil to take photos of her movement, daily life, and routine in New York, Brooklyn. The plot was to kidnap her and take her by speedboat to Venezuela, then to Iran for trial.
Jamshid Sharmahd, an Iranian dissident who lived in Los Angeles for two decades, created a website for reporting human rights abuses in Iran. In 2020, while changing planes in Dubai on a business trip, his phone started heading in the wrong direction. His daughter Jazelle Sharmahd saw him on Iranian TV in a courtroom looking petrified.
He's forced to confessions about crimes he did not commit. The charge is corruption on earth. That's why he got the death sentence.
Is it a situation where he could actually be executed? Oh, yes. Any day. They want to hang him from a crane in the middle of the city.
The original plot to kidnap Masih Alinejad was thwarted. In 2022, Iran paid an Azerbaijani living outside New York City $30,000 to buy a semi-automatic rifle and kill her. He lurked outside her home for a week, planning to exploit her friendliness to neighbors.
He was actually following my life. He knew that I was the one offering flowers to strangers.
You offered flowers to strangers? Yeah, this is me. So, he received a text message from the guy inside Iran saying that go and knock on the door then take her to the backyard garden. If I had opened the door, I would have just given him a big smile and said, "Yes, let's go to my garden." And then he wanted to just kill me.
Did he actually knock on your door? Yes.
Her home security camera caught him on her porch trying to get in. He took off but was pulled over for running a stop sign; police found the rifle in his car. He's in custody awaiting trial. Neither he nor two other men prosecutors say were hired were Iranian; they were Eastern European criminals from criminal syndicates.
This is what the Islamic Republic is really good at, like using drug dealers, using criminals to do their dirty job on western soil and maybe have deniability.
Exactly. We didn't do it. That's the point. So why did they use proxies? To have somebody who is not being tracked by intelligence or security agencies.
Matt Jukes, head of counterterrorism policing in Britain, says the UK foiled 15 Iranian kidnapping and assassination attempts since last year.
I have been involved in national security policing for over 20 years. What we've seen in the last 18 months is a real acceleration.
Criminal gangs hire other criminal gangs, sometimes a third group, creating no direct line from state organizations to the threat.
A recording from a foreign intelligence agency features an Iranian smuggler from Heria (near the Turkish border) who received a call from the IRGC. The IRGC offered to ignore his smuggling if he found people for jobs like catching, beating up, or getting rid of targets.
Surveillance video shows him recruiting Mansor Rasuli, an alleged drug dealer in white, who agreed to arrange assassinations in Europe for Iran for money. Weeks later, Rasuli was kidnapped and interrogated in a car by Israeli intelligence, extracting a cell phone confession.
Rasuli admits he was paid $150,000 upfront and promised $1 million if he killed three people: an Israeli at the embassy in Istanbul, Turkey; an American general in Germany; and a journalist in France (philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, a vocal critic of Tehran).
The plot to kill the three was prevented, but Iran has successfully kidnapped and smuggled dissidents to Iran in recent years; several were executed. They've succeeded in Europe but not in the United States, despite many targets among American officials and others.
Look, I think the targeting of American citizens by a hostile foreign government is very close to an act of war. What would happen if they succeeded in assassinating someone like you, a well-known former official? Well, I wouldn't like to find out for myself or for the country. But why are we sitting here quietly talking about this when they're in effect saying they're going to commit acts of war against American citizens on American soil?
Does the fact that Iran feels emboldened to come after our citizens mean we've lost our deterrence? Well, I think we have lost deterrence and I think this also goes to an unwillingness on the part of the administration to confront the Ayatollahs in a way that they understand.
They can challenge US government on US soil without any punishment. Then what's the reason to stop?
There are sanctions against them. Sanctions are not sufficient.
What do you want us to do? Drop a bomb? No. Look, when you negotiate with the killers, you're empowering them.
The Biden administration didn't respond to the request for an interview.
When Masih Alinejad testified before Congress about Iran in September, she warned that unless the administration's policy changes, her life remains in danger.
I believe that when I'm not in the spotlight, when media like you are not paying attention to me, finally they're going to come after me.
She and her family have gone into hiding under FBI protection.
It's like, wow, the government from my own country trying to kill me, but my adopted country trying to protect me. You have to be an Iranian to survive assassination plot to understand that how it feels to survive in America and to have the platform and to criticize the US government.
You're tearing up. Tell me why you're tearing up. Because people in my country get killed for criticizing, get shot in head for the crime of criticizing.
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