U.S. Accuses Iranians of Plotting to Kill Saudi Envoy

Federal authorities foiled a plot by men linked to the Iranian government to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and to bomb the embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a news conference on Tuesday.



Mr. Holder said the plot began with a meeting in Mexico in May, “the first of a series that would result in an international conspiracy by elements of the Iranian government” to pay $1.5 million to murder the ambassador on United States soil.

The men accused of plotting the attacks were Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, according to court documents filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York. The Justice Department said the men were originally from Iran. There is “no basis to believe that any other co-conspirators are present in the U.S.,” Mr. Holder said.

He said the men were connected to the secretive Quds Force, a division of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that has carried out operations in other countries. He said that money in support of the plot had been transferred through a bank in New York, but that the men had not yet obtained any explosives.

The Justice Department said in a statement that Mr. Shakuri, a member of the Quds force, remained at large. Mr. Arbabsiar, a naturalized American citizen, was arrested on Sept. 29.

“In addition to holding these individual conspirators accountable for their alleged role in this plot, the United States is committed to holding Iran accountable for its actions,” Mr. Holder said.

A senior administration official said the Treasury Department planned to announce new sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is already heavily sanctioned for its role in overseeing Iran’s nuclear program. The sanctions will single out five senior officials of the Guards Corps and the Quds force, the official said.

Iran reacted immediately to the news, calling the accusations a fabrication. Details offered by the Justice Department painted a picture of a dizzying international plot involving Mexican drug cartels, murder for hire and huge sums of money being transferred from unknown locations.

The department said in its criminal complaint filed on Tuesday that from the spring of this year, Mr. Arbabsiar conspired with Mr. Shakuri to plot the assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir. According to the complaint, conspirators based in Iran were aware of and approved the plan, which involved hiring men connected to a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the killing.

The complaint alleges that those hired by the two men were in fact confidential sources of the Drug Enforcement Agency. They were later asked if they were knowledgeable in bomb-making, the complaint said, Mr. Arbabsiar “was interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia.”

For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District, said in the news conference. “So no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere,” he said, “and no one was actually in ever in any danger.”

According the complaint, Mr. Arbabsiar attempted to reassure the two federal informants that they would be paid if they carried out the assassination: “This is politics,” he told them, saying that the money was not coming from an individual but from a government. “It’s not like, eh, personal ... this is politics.”

Elsewhere in the complaint, Mr. Arbabsiar told them that the assassination was the most important element of the plot and should be carried out even if there would be a large number of casualties: “They want that guy done, if the hundred go with him.”

After his arrest, law enforcement officials in early October had Mr. Arbabsiar make phone calls to Mr. Shakuri in Iran that were monitored. It was during those calls, the complaint alleges, that Mr. Shakuri urged Mr. Arbabsiar to carry out the plan as a quickly as possible.

The complaint accuses the men of conspiracy to murder a foreign official; conspiracy to engage in foreign travel and use interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. specifically explosives; and conspiracy to commit an act of international terrorism.

ABC News, citing an unnamed official, reported that the plot also included plans to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington, as well as those belonging to Saudi Arabia and Israel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Mr. Holder said the Mexican government had been instrumental in the investigation.

A spokesman for the National Security Council said that the plot had first been brought to President Obama’s attention earlier this year.

“The President was first briefed on this issue in June and directed his Administration to provide all necessary support to this investigation,” he said in a statement. “The disruption of this plot is a significant achievement by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and the president is enormously grateful for their exceptional work in this instance and countless others.”

At the White House, President Obama’s senior national security aides held a two-and-a-half hour meeting on Tuesday morning to discuss how the United States should respond to the planned attacks. Mr. Obama thanked the F.B.I. and other law enforcement authorities for their work in disrupting the plot.

“We’re going to work with allies and partners to send Iran a message: we don’t tolerate the targeting of foreign diplomats on our soil,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A major variable in the response, officials said, is how Saudi Arabia might react. The White House national security advisor, Thomas E. Donilon, informed King Abdullah of the plot two weeks ago, in a three-hour meeting held in Saudi Arabia.

On Tuesday, Abdullah Alshamri, a Saudi official in Riyadh, predicted the disclosure would send Iranian-Saudi relations to “their lowest point yet.” Though no government steps had been taken, he suggested that a diplomatic row was inevitable.

“We’re expecting from our government a serious and tough reaction to give a message to the Iranians that enough is enough,” he said by telephone. “If we keep our diplomatic ties with the Iranians, they will think we are weak and they will keep trying to attack us.”

He said this was only the latest Iranian attempt to attack Saudi diplomats.

“This is their hobby,” he said. “Iran has no respect for international law.”

Anthony Shadid contributed reporting from Beirut and Mark Landler from Washington.