Grim possibility thrwarted by DEA and FBI
This story is just breaking, and this report by Brian Bennett appears in the LA Times:
An elaborate Iranian-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States was disrupted by FBI and DEA agents, officials said Tuesday.
Members of an elite Iranian security force planned to detonate a bomb at a busy Washington restaurant, killing Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and possibly over 100 bystanders, according to documents filed in New York federal court.
The State Department has listed Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism since 1984.
The current plot was infiltrated by a Drug Enforcement Agency informant posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel, officials said. The plotters planned to pay a member of the Zetas cartel $1.5 million to carry out the attack, and two advance payments of nearly $50,000 each were wired to an FBI-controlled bank account in August, they said.
An Iranian American, Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, has been arrested in the case. An Iran-based member of the secret Quds Force unit of that country’s Revolutionary Guard, Gholam Shakuri, was also charged but is not in custody, officials said. . .
