Iranian Plots to Recruit Assassination Teams Targeting Donald Trump Exposed

The Iranian regime, notorious for its violent tactics, has reportedly organized several “kill teams” with the intent to eliminate former President Donald Trump over the past five years.

Following the recent downfall of Iran’s hardline Islamist leadership, numerous fatwas — religious decrees urging Muslims to execute Trump — have been issued. These directives aimed to coordinate his assassination through operatives based within the United States.

“They’re like the mafia—ruthless and determined,” remarked Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and a terrorism expert, in an interview with The Post. “They maintain a hit list and have dispatched numerous agents to carry out these deadly missions.”

Two assassination plans from 2024 were thwarted, revealing the extreme measures planned by the regime prior to the U.S. military’s offensive against Iran on February 28, which resulted in the death of Ayatollah Khamenei and his associates.

In one instance, a regime spy was instructed to assemble a “kill team” to plot Trump’s assassination while he was actively campaigning. He managed to enlist two hitmen based in the U.S., both of whom were eventually captured.

According to court documents, the spy, identified as Farhad Shakeri, was tasked by his Iranian superiors to devise a plan to assassinate Trump on October 7, 2024.

Shakeri indicated to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official that it “would cost a ‘huge’ amount of money. In response, IRGC Official said ‘we have already spent a lot of money … so the money’s not an issue,’” according to the documents from the trials of the hitmen.  

The papers explain Shakeri understood to mean that the IRGC had previously spent a “significant sum” on efforts to murder Trump and “was willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt to procure [Trump]’s assassination.”

He was also told he had only seven days to carry out the plot. According to his interview with the FBI, he was told if he couldn’t carry it out his IRGC handler said it would stop the plan until after the 2024 election as they had assessed “[Trump] would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate” him.

Shakeri spoke to the FBI by phone from Tehran, the Iranian capital, where he was based. Although born in Afghanistan, he had been taken to the US as a child and served 14 years in prison on various crimes before being deported. It is there he made his criminal connections which allowed him to eventually recruit hitmen for the regime.

Shakeri had already engaged two hitmen, his old prison buddy Carlisle “Pop” Rivera and a man named Jonathan Loadholt, both New Yorkers. They were initially promised $100,000 to assassinate a different person, an anti-Iranian regime activist. However, they were caught before carrying out their plan.

Both men were found guilty of murder-for-hire, with Rivera sentenced to 15 years in prison in January. Loadholt is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

Shakeri was charged with murder-for-hire by the FBI in absentia, as he remained in Iran.

However, this week, US and Israeli forces said they took out the Tehran-based “mastermind” behind assassination attempts against Trump.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the death after the deadly strikes on Tehran, now widely believed to be Shakeri or his boss Rahman Mokadam, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) special forces unit charged with killing Trump — or both of them.

As recently as January, a month before US and Israeli strikes on the country, Iran issued a threat against Trump, broadcasting a picture of the commander-in-chief during the 2024 Butler rally assassination attempt — with the words “This time it will not miss the target.”

US investigators told Trump months after that assassination attempt they could not rule out Iran’s role, and noted then multiple “kill teams” were plotting his demise, according to reports.

Iran has had Trump in its crosshairs since the US military killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020 on Trump’s orders.

Carmon explained the Iranians only work with their own nationals to plan and co-ordinate hits on enemies, saying “they do it with Iranians, not Americans,” but actually carrying out the hits can be done by any contract killer.

The second known plot against Trump was orchestrated by a Pakistani national was told he’d get up to $1 million if the hit was successful.

Asif Merchant came to the US to recruit a kill team and posed as a Pakistani clothing merchant, according to federal court documents.

He was convicted Mar. 6 of terrorism and murder-for-hire in Brooklyn federal court.

Merchant, who represented himself at trial, said the plot involved setting up a fake protest, hiring a local hit squad and stealing documents.

However, the “hitmen” he got turned out to be undercover FBI agents, according to court records.

“I was not wanting to do this so willingly,” Merchant said through an Urdu translator at his trial this week.

He claimed he was forced by IRGC leaders to go along with the plan to kill Trump and other US politicians, saying Iranian officials had threatened his family in Iran. He has another wife and family who are in Pakistan, according to court records.

Merchant said his handler in Tehran listed his targets as Trump, Joe Biden and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.

In April 2024, Merchant traveled from Iran to Houston and then to New York where he met a confidential source (CS) cooperating with federal investigators at a Nassau County hotel.

Merchant allegedly moved various small objects on a hotel napkin as he explained the plan to the CS which involved hiring 25 people to conduct a fake protest as a “distraction” for the hit squad to strike their targets, court papers say.

He also stated that the “people who will be targeted are the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world. These are not normal people.”

Merchant said he had received “clarity from God to carry out his mission,” court papers say.

Merchant allegedly used coded language related to his fake clothing business to designate his targets, writing “T-shirt” for “protest,” which he described as the “lightest work.”

The phrase “flannel shirt” would mean “stealing,” which was “heavier work.” The phrase “fleece jacket,” the heaviest work, would mean “the third task . . . commit the act of the game,” indicating murder. The phrase “denim jacket” referred to “sending money.”

“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement after his conviction.

Merchant faces up to life in prison when sentenced, the date of which has yet to be decided.