The federal government said Tuesday that two men -- Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri -- have been charged in a plot directed by "elements" of the Iranian government to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. in Washington, D.C.
Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, and Shakuri, allegedly a member of Iran's Quds Force -- the special operations unit of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- are said to have plotted to murder the ambassador using explosives.
Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29 at JFK airport in New York. Shakuri is based in, and by all account remains, in Iran.
"Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been real," said FBI Director Robert Mueller during a press conference at the Justice Department. "We send a clear message that any attempts on American soil will not be tolerated."
"It is only working side by side that we are able to stop plots like this before they can take hold," Mueller said.
It shows once again that the key to stopping terrorism continues to be and always has been good police work and solid investigation skills but I'm certainly not very happy with the implications that the Justice Department is laying this directly at the feet of the Iranian military, and would be working to "hold Iran accountable" for the plot.
Things could get ugly here, and very quickly. We'll see what the evidence says, but I foresee this getting bad sooner rather than later.
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