US charges Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps member with plot to murder John Bolton
White House national security adviser John Bolton arrives to speak about the political unrest in Venezuela after violence broke out at anti-government protests near Caracas, outside the White House in Washington, US, April 30, 2019. REUTERS
The US charged an Iranian national and member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday with plotting to murder former American National Security Advisor John Bolton.
“Beginning in October 2021, Shahram Poursafi, aka Mehdi Rezayi, 45, of Tehran, Iran, attempted to arrange the murder of former National Security Advisor John Bolton, likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qasem Soleimani,” the Justice Department said in a statement.
It said Poursafi was working on behalf of the IRGC-QF and ”attempted to pay individuals in the United States $300,000 to carry out the murder in Washington, D.C. or Maryland.”
Soleimani, the head of the IRGC-QF, was killed in January 2020 in a US drone strike in Baghdad, Iraq.