The Secretary of War of the United States, Pete Hegseth, confirmed that the US military killed the Iranian official who led the unit that tried to assassinate Donald Trump, after winning the presidential elections of 2024.
As he said, the elimination occurred within the framework of the military offensive carried out against Iran and represented a direct message in the face of the previous attempt against the president.
“Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump laughed his heart out,” Hegseth told reporters, describing the result of the operation.
President Donald Trump and the defeated Ali Khamenei.
The head of the Pentagon used an emphatic tone to refer to the conflict against the Iranian terrorist regime and maintained that the United States can sustain that
level of activity as long as it deems necessary.
“They're finished and they know it. Or at least soon they will know,” he said of the Iranian leaders. He added: “The United States is winning decisively, devastatingly and mercilessly
.”
During his presentation, Hegseth explained that the killed official headed a unit linked to the assassination attempt against Trump in 2024. However, he clarified that this objective had not originally been proposed as a central priority of the military operation
.
“Although that was not the main objective of the effort, much less — in fact, neither the president nor anyone else raised it — I made sure, and others made sure, that those responsible for it were finally part of the list of objectives,” he said.
President Donald Trump.
The assassination attempt against Trump
In 2024, the United States Department of Justice had charged an Iranian citizen with a plot ordered by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corpsto assassinate Trump, who was then president-elect
.
Trump himself referred to the assassination attempt when he spoke on Sunday about the joint operation between the United States and Israel that ended with the death of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Speaking to ABC News, the president said: “I caught him before he caught me
.”
Hegseth, however, specified that Trump had not given specific instructions to prioritize the capture or elimination of the leader of the unit linked to the plot. Even so, he stressed that the Pentagon made the decision to include those responsible within the
