هذا التقرير متاح أيضًا بـ العربية
Within just a few days at the start of July 2026, four signals accumulated that at first glance appeared to be separate events: an Israeli intelligence leak to Washington about a “specific” Iranian plot to assassinate US President Donald Trump; banners raised during the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei threatening to kill Trump; a message from his successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, pledging that revenge is “near”; and a US indictment revealing a network led by a commander in Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah to carry out cross-border retaliatory operations.
This convergence raises a question that goes beyond the facts themselves: Do these signals reflect a new Iranian escalation, or do they represent a repackaging of an existing threat within a political battle over the future of any understanding between Washington and Tehran?
The leak came at a moment when the US-Iran framework agreement is facing a real test, and it came from the party most harmed by any negotiating track with Iran, opening the door to a broader reading of the intelligence through the lens of its timing and political context, alongside an examination of the actual roots of the Iranian threat and the structure that could make it actionable.
The Israeli leak
The narrative began with a report published by The Wall Street Journal, before being picked up by CNN on July 9 and 10, saying that Israel had provided Washington with intelligence about a “new and specific” Iranian plot to assassinate US President Donald Trump. But a closer look at the details of the account reveals a clear discrepancy in how it was described, raising questions about the nature of the information itself.
Two US sources confirmed that US intelligence agencies were unable to independently verify the information, while Israel’s Channel 12 quoted US officials offering a different characterization, lowering the claim from an operational plot to merely a “general discussion” among Iranian officials about the possibility of targeting Trump.
The retreat did not stop there. In a later CNN account, the language shifted from a “detailed plot” to a “desire” among hard-line elements within the Iranian leadership, reportedly driven most prominently by the new commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Ahmad Vahidi, whom the Trump administration views as one of the main obstacles to the negotiating track.
Between the descriptions of a “plan,” a “discussion,” and a “desire,” the gap widens between an imminent, actionable threat and intentions that reflect the political mood prevailing inside the Iranian system for years.
At the same time, US intelligence acknowledged that it has for some time been tracking ongoing indications of Iranian desires to target Trump and current and former US officials, but concluded that those indications had not developed into a complete plan, either because implementation faltered or because a final political decision had not been made by the Iranian leadership.
Based on this sequence and breakdown, what the Israeli leak carried was not the discovery of a new danger so much as the repackaging of a known threat in a form suggesting it was a new development imposing itself on the US decision-maker for political purposes.
The timing of the leak is no less important than its content. It came while the framework agreement between Washington and Tehran was entering a delicate phase, and it came from Israel, which sees any US-Iran understanding as a direct threat to its interests. US officials themselves also opened the door to this possibility, with some suggesting the leak may have been part of an attempt to influence President Trump’s choices at a moment when he was weighing how to deal with Iran, while others pointed to recurring reservations within the US intelligence community about some Israeli assessments.
This reading is reinforced by the nature of the widening gap between Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump in recent months, whether over the war in Lebanon or the negotiating track with Tehran. At the same time, any information related to a direct threat to Trump’s life carries exceptional weight, given that he survived two assassination attempts in 2024 and has repeatedly acknowledged that he tops Iran’s target list.
That turns intelligence information, regardless of its degree of accuracy, into a pressure tool capable of influencing the psychological and political environment surrounding the decision-maker.
This scene demands an added degree of caution, especially since the two attempts on Trump’s life in 2024 were accompanied by efforts to link them to Iran before the investigations reached different conclusions. Thomas Crooks, who carried out the Butler incident, was never shown to have any connection to Tehran, while Ryan Routh, who carried out the Florida incident, was driven by his pro-Ukraine background, while the reference to Iran came from his personal writings, not from any organizational link.
The root that gives the threat credibility
Although the timing of the leak and the way it was presented open a broad door to questions, that does not negate the existence of a real root that gives the threat to assassinate Trump a measure of credibility. That root begins on Jan. 3, 2020, when US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, in an operation that became a fixed point of reference in Iranian rhetoric. Since that date, avenging Soleimani has become part of the Iranian leadership’s discourse, repeated by senior officials as an ongoing commitment that goes beyond the bounds of political or media response.
The case of Pakistani citizen Asif Merchant offers the clearest example of that rhetoric moving into an actual attempt. In March 2026, a US court convicted Merchant of conspiracy to assassinate Trump and a number of US officials, in a plot that prosecutors said was woven under the direction of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in revenge for Soleimani’s killing. Merchant had been arrested in July 2024 after delivering an advance payment to would-be operatives who later turned out to be undercover agents, just one day before the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler.
This case carries two parallel implications. The first is that avenging Soleimani did not remain at the level of slogans, but appeared in practical attempts that US security agencies thwarted before they reached the execution stage. The second is that the case’s timing alongside the attempt on Trump’s life in Butler helped feed a general impression of a direct link between the two events, even though the investigations clearly separated them.
This root explains why the United States treats seriously any information related to targeting Trump, even in cases that do not rise to the level of an operational plan. The threat is not based on a theoretical assumption or abstract political rhetoric, but on a documented precedent proving that circles linked to the Revolutionary Guard did in fact seek to translate this revenge into an assassination operation something whose escalation would certainly be expected with the idea of revenge moving to higher levels in response to the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. This background gives any new warning a degree of plausibility while also increasing its political value, as a real danger that can be repurposed whenever the balance of conflict requires it.
The structure that keeps the threat alive
In the same context, the case of Mohammed Baqir al-Saadi reveals a structure through which this revenge could have turned into operations extending beyond Iran’s borders. In May 2026, the US Justice Department announced an indictment against the Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah commander, holding him responsible for about 20 attacks and attempted attacks targeting US and Jewish interests in Europe and North America through a network operating under a front tied to the group.
The indictment included a series of operations, among them the arson of a bank branch in Amsterdam, the stabbing of two Jewish men in London, and gunfire at the US Consulate in Toronto, in addition to revealing that al-Saadi possessed maps and detailed plans of the home of Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner, accompanied by threatening messages saying that security measures would not prevent Americans from being targeted.
The importance of this case goes beyond the nature of the operations attributed to al-Saadi to the organizational structure it exposed. According to the US prosecution, al-Saadi had a direct relationship with former Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, before continuing to receive logistical and financial support from his successor, Esmail Ghaani, showing the reach of an operational network linking the Revolutionary Guard leadership to a group of regional allies, and its ability to activate cells spread across more than one arena while maintaining broad room for political deniability.
In this context, the message from Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, takes on significance beyond its mobilizing dimension. In the wake of his father’s funeral, he pledged to avenge the slain supreme leader and the “martyrs of the two wars,” stressing that this revenge “will be realized soon,” before adding that “individuals among the liberationists around the world will each carry out part of this divine duty.”
This wording opens the door to a different way of understanding Iranian rhetoric, linking the center of decision-making in Tehran to actors dispersed beyond it, without referring to direct orders or organizational structures that could be explicitly held responsible. In that sense, the wording of the message intersects with the model presented by the al-Saadi case: a central discourse that grants legitimacy and political cover, and networks and proxies that handle implementation through mechanisms that give the Iranian leadership broad room for denial.
This symbolic dimension becomes even more pronounced with Mojtaba Khamenei’s absence from public view since his father was assassinated in a strike in which he was also believed to have been wounded, limiting his presence to written messages. In light of that absence, his words carry added political weight because they come from a supreme leader overseeing a phase of reasserting power and placing revenge at the center of his discourse, in language that leaves the boundaries open between political mobilization and a signal that could find its way into execution through networks that already exist.
Overlapping indicators and political aims
This scene does not lead to denying the Iranian threat, nor does it justify treating every intelligence leak as a complete fact. US judicial precedents, the rhetoric of revenge adopted by the Iranian leadership since the killing of Qassem Soleimani and intensified after the assassination of the supreme leader, and the networks uncovered by investigations all give the threat a real foundation that is difficult to ignore.
At the same time, the timing of the Israeli leak, the gradual shift in how it was described, and its political context show that the same danger can be turned into a tool for influencing US decision-making, especially at moments when the negotiating track intersects with the calculations of war.
Between an existing threat and possible political instrumentalization, the intelligence battle takes on a broader place in the battle over policymaking, going beyond its traditional role of anticipating risks. The closer Washington and Tehran come to a new test of the path toward understanding, the more valuable this kind of leak will become as one of the tools in the struggle to shape US decision-making, even as it reflects real security risks.
This reading becomes even more important when one recalls the role played by Israeli intelligence assessments about the fragility of the Iranian regime’s structure and the possibility of deciding the confrontation within days, which formed one of the main factors behind the Trump administration’s rush toward war.
That precedent reveals the extent of the influence that directed intelligence can exert on political decision-making by repackaging information or assessments that serve a political purpose, regardless of their accuracy or their ability to withstand subsequent facts.