The US is offering a $20m (£15m) reward for information leading to the arrest of an Iranian man accused of plotting to assassinate Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), is accused of trying to hire criminals in the US to kill Mr Bolton, a vocal Iran critic, in exchange for $300,000.
The reward announcement comes in the same week that Trump said he had been briefed by US intelligence about an alleged Iranian assassination plot against him.
Iran has previously denied orchestrating any plots to assassinate Trump officials or interfere in US affairs.
Officials say that from October 2021 to April 2022 Mr Poursafi attempted to hire “criminal elements within the United States” to murder Mr Bolton in Washington DC or Maryland.
One of the potential assassins he contacted was a confidential source for US investigators, according to the state department.
Mr Poursafi allegedly told that person that after completing the hit on Bolton, “he would have a second assassination job for him”.
His alleged motivation was retaliation against the US for its assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, which was ordered by Trump when he was in the White House, according to officials.
The US Department of Justice charged Mr Poursafi with the alleged murder plot in 2022 . He remains at large, and officials say he is not believed to be in the US.
Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Javad Zarif, in an interview with NBC News this week, denied accusations that his government has attempted to kill Iranian critics abroad.
“We do not assassinate people, but the fact of the matter is – they assassinated a revered Iranian general,” he said.
Mr Bolton, speaking to NBC on Thursday, said that the US should be “more proactive” about the Iranian threats.
“When they come after us, government officials, current and former, for doing their job, really, that’s an attack on the United States government itself,” said Mr Bolton.
“I don’t think staying in a passive mode about it is the best way to go. We know that this is more than idle speculation in Tehran.”
Earlier this week, the Trump campaign said that it had received a briefing from US intelligence about Iranian plots to kill Trump.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence in the US acknowledged the briefing but declined to address any specifics.
Trump posted on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, that there are “big threats on my life by Iran.”
“Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.”
There has been no suggestion by US investigators that Iran was involved in either of the two recent assassination attempts against Trump, at a rally in Pennsylvania and at his golf course in Florida.
Meanwhile, the FBI and US intelligence aggencies have alleged that Iranian hackers stole and attempted to distribute information about Donald Trump’s electoral campaign, hoping to “stoke discord” and undermine confidence in US institutions ahead of the November election.
