WASHINGTON — When nearly $100,000 landed in an undercover FBI bank account from a source linked to an Iranian paramilitary force, officials began taking seriously an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador that at first had seemed outlandish.
As the investigation unfolded over recent months, a name emerged that chilled some in Washington. The Iranian cousin of the man accused of plotting the assassination was Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior commander in Iran’s Quds Force, who had been linked to the killing of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Shahlai was known as the guiding hand behind an elite group of gunmen from the feared militia of the Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. They had dressed as U.S. and Iraqi soldiers and, in a convoy of SUVs, stormed a provincial government building in Karbala on Jan. 20, 2007. Five Americans were killed in the attack.
“The U.S. government has known for quite some time that the Quds Force was involved in this type of external plotting and has known that Shahlai has been behind much of it,” said a U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Shahlai’s cousin in the U.S. was Mansour Arbabsiar, 56, who grew up with him but immigrated to Texas in the 1970s.
This year, Arbabsiar returned to Iran to live. Shahlai apparently decided that he had found another proxy to strike at two of Iran’s principal enemies: the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. officials say Shahlai hoped that Arbabsiar, by virtue of his time in Texas, might be able to get in touch with Mexican drug traffickers who would kidnap Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. The plan allegedly later evolved into assassinating him in Washington.
