Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the leader of the Iranian covert unit that planned to assassinate President Trump in 2024 had been killed in the U.S. strikes on Iran.
The Pentagon provided few details, but the Trump administration has said that Iran’s plotting to kill U.S. officials — particularly Mr. Trump — is one reason the United States launched its bombing campaign.
Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Mr. Hegseth said that the leader of the Iranian unit that tried to kill Mr. Trump was killed in a strike on Tuesday.
“Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump got the last laugh,” Mr. Hegseth said.
While Mr. Hegseth spoke with his usual bravado, he also noted that he was not trying to claim a “mission accomplished situation,” a reference to the banner that hung behind President George W. Bush when he prematurely declared an end to “major combat operations” in Iraq in May 2003.
But Mr. Hegseth also seemed to claim that victory in Iran was around the corner.
“This is simply a reality check. The combination of U.S. and Israeli intelligence and combat power will control Iran and will control it soon,” he said.
In the days before a gunman in Butler, Pa., shot at and wounded Mr. Trump during his 2024 presidential run, the United States learned of an Iranian plot to try and kill the former president — an attempt at revenge for the American drone strike that killed an influential Iranian general, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
A Pakistani man, Asif Merchant, was arrested in July 2024 on charges of working with Iran to kill Mr. Trump.
Mr. Merchant is currently on trial and prosecutors have described how he laid out a cryptic scheme to carry out an assassination with another man who was an F.B.I. informant.
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.
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