A Western intelligence agency reportedly alerted the United States to an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump while he was in Turkey.
Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 reported that senior figures in Iran viewed Trump’s visit to Ankara, Turkey’s capital, last week for a major NATO summit as a possible opening to target the US president.
US officials were said to have received advance warning of the alleged plan, leading to a late change in travel arrangements that saw Trump moved from his new Air Force One aircraft to an older model.
The New York Times reported last week that the switch was made in part because the Secret Service had concerns that the newer aircraft, donated by Qatar, lacked some of the security and operational features available on the older plane.
Members of the press traveling with the president were instructed to keep the window shades closed in the press cabin during take-off, though no reason was given at the time.
The reports emerged as Trump himself referred to earlier alleged Iranian assassination threats during a press conference on Wednesday.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Turkey, the president said: “They [Iran] want to take out the US leader — me. I’m on every list.”
“I’m on every single one of their lists, and so far I guess I’ve been a little bit lucky, but that maybe doesn’t last very long, because that’s the way it goes,” Trump added.
The US was warned by a Western intelligence agency that Iran was plotting to kill Donald Trump (pictured) in Turkey
The new Air Force One plane (pictured) was donated by Qatar
But there have been concerns that the new plane does not have the same safety features as the old one
The United States and Iran each asserted on Monday they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war.
The attacks, sparked by Iran striking a container ship Sunday in the strait off the coast of Oman, again underlined that the waterway that once saw a fifth of the world’s traded crude oil and natural gas pass through it remained the key issue in negotiations.
The narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf has seen shipping disrupted since the start of the war as Iran maintained a chokehold on it by attacking commercial vessels around it, intimidating shippers.
Iran and the US are nearly at the midway point of the 60-day period of an interim deal that was supposed to set up talks for a permanent end to the war.
Instead, it has devolved into a series of attacks over the strait and its future, worrying world leaders the Iran war fully could resume.
‘A return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences,’ United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.
The US military’s Central Command described its forces as hitting dozens of sites in the strikes Monday, including air defense systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment and small boats.
President Donald Trump waves as he switches planes at US Air Force Base, RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk Eastern England
‘The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,’ Central Command said. ‘Iran does not control it.’
The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, also called for the strait to be open as it was before the war.
‘The Strait of Hormuz has to be opened, freedom of navigation has to be respected,’ she said.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key power center in the country’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal, sharply rejected America’s statement.
‘The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it,’ the Guard said.
