(WASHINGTON) — The leader of an Iranian unit behind an attempted 2024 plot to assassinate President Donald Trump has been killed, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Wednesday as he gave an update on the administration’s war against Tehran.
“Yesterday, the leader of the unit who attempted to assassinate President Trump has been hunted down and killed,” Hegseth said. “Iran tried to kill President Trump, and President Trump got the last laugh.”
The secretary did not name the individual, and later said the killing was not the objective of the operation.
“We’ve known for a long time that Iran had intentions on trying to kill President Trump and or other U.S. officials,” Hegseth said.
“While that was not the focus of the effort by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, never raised by the president or anybody else, I ensured, and others ensured, that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list,” he added.
In the summer of 2024, when Trump was campaigning for president, U.S. intelligence indicated there was an Iranian threat to assassinate Trump, prompting the Secret Service to increase his security protection.
In November 2024, the Department of Justice charged an Iranian man who prosecutors said was tasked with surveilling and killing Trump to avenge the 2020 death of Qassem Soleimani, the top commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Soleimani was killed in a January 2020 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad directed by Trump.
Iran has denied that it had plotted to kill Trump.
President Trump, in a phone call with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl, mentioned the assassination plot when discussing the U.S. and Israeli strike that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“I got him before he got me,” Trump told ABC’s Karl on Sunday night. “They tried twice. Well, I got him first.”
Hegseth on Wednesday also announced that the U.S. submarine had sunk an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean named the “Soleimani,” the first time a U.S. submarine had sunk a ship since World War II.
“Looks like POTUS got him twice,” Hegseth said.
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