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A plot to kill Donald Trump has been revealed by the unsealing of US court documents charging a man who claimed he was tasked by an Iranian government official with assassinating the president-elect before this week's election.
Investigators uncovered the plot to kill Mr Trump while interviewing Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government asset deported from the US after being imprisoned on robbery charges.
Shakeri told investigators a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard ordered him in September to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Mr Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in a court in Manhattan.
Two other men, who the authorities said were recruited to take part in other assassinations - including a prominent Iranian American journalist - were also arrested on Friday. Shakeri remains in Iran.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement: "There are few actors in the world that pose as grave a threat to the national security of the United States as does Iran."
The plot, with the charges unsealed just days after Mr Trump's election victory, reflects what federal officials have described as ongoing efforts by Iran to target US government officials in the United States.
Last summer, the Justice Department charged a Pakistani man with ties to Iran in a murder-for-hire plot.
Mr Trump survived two failed assassination attempts in the run up to the vote on Tuesday (November 5). A gunman opened fire at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, unleashing a hail of bullets which grazed his ear and left a supporter dead in July.
After the gunman was killed, Mr Trump raised his fist in the air, shouting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" as the crowd erupted into cheers. He later revisited the site of the failed attempt on his life with tech billionaire Elon Musk in a bid to bolster his campaign.
In September, a man found with a gun outside Mr Trump's golf course in Florida was charged with attempting to kill the then Republican presidential candidate.
Mr Trump told his supporters that he believed God had spared him from the assassination attempts for a reason during his victory speech on Wednesday.
He said: "Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness, and now we are going to fulfill that mission together. We’re going to fulfill that."
Relations between the US and Iran have been fraught for years. During his first administration, Mr Trump pursued a policy of "maximum pressure" against Iran and unilaterally withdrew the US from a nuclear deal brokered with Tehran. He also ordered the killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in 2020.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly expressed his disgust at Mr Trump. But Iran’s new reformist president has kept the door open to talks to seek relief from international sanctions.
Khamenei’s website hosts a video which imagines Mr Trump being killed in an Iranian drone strike as he plays golf with former US Secretary of State and CIA chief Mike Pompeo.
Both men have received extra protection over Iranian threats to their lives.
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