American media had earlier reported that that Washington believed Iran was plotting to assassinate US Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks in retaliation for the killing of top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq earlier this year.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has slammed US President Donald Trump for threatening Tehran over an alleged assassination plot against a US diplomat.
In a tweet on Tuesday, Zarif targeted US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as a “habitual liar” who had “bamboozled” Trump into ordering the assassination of Iran's top anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani in the Iraqi capital Baghdad earlier in the year.
Referring to a Politico report that cited unnamed Washington officials as claiming Iran was hatching a covert operation to assassinate US Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks ahead of the November American presidential election, Zarif said Pompeo was yet again attempting to deceive the US president and “sucker him into the mother of all quagmires by leaking a new false alarm”.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump had cited “press reports” that Iran “may be planning an assassination, or other attack, against the United States” in retaliation for the Washington-ordered killing of General Soleimani in Iraq in January.
Trump warned of a potential response to any Iranian attack that “will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!”
During a virtual discussion with Atlantic…
