Trump assassination plots linked to Iran will be an American nightmare again as sleeper cell fears return amid Iran-Israel shaky truce

As the ceasefire announced by President Donald Trump to end the Israel-Iran war wobbles, the US is bracing for the fallout of its intervention in the war with B2 bomber strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. There are fears that Iranian operatives could activate sleeper cells in the US, and try to assassinate Trump as well as other senior American officials. This may not be a figment of imagination, as the US justice department and intelligence community had unearthed several allegedly Iran-linked plots to assassinate Trump. For his part, Trump said he had ‘left instructions to obliterate Iran’ if he is assassinated in an Iranian plot. So, how real is the possibility of sleeper cells in Iran wreaking havoc? Here is what we know:

Iran is not a stranger to overseas assassination plots

In the past decades, operatives of the Islamic Republic periodically conducted overseas assassinations, mainly targeting opponents of the regime and adherents and sympathisers of the previous Shah dynasty. In the wake of a Trump-ordered assassination of senior Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020, Iran had vowed revenge. But many of the past Iranian plots had been unsuccessful.

Officially, Tehran denies targeting Trump, with the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

saying after Trump's re-election that it respected the American people's verdict.

Worries about Iranian plots to kill Trump are years old

Senior politicians in the US had often raised the possibility that Iran would try to assassinate Trump. Republican leader Ted Cruz, for instance, said on June 18 in an interview with Tucker Carlson: “The Iranian regime has been trying to murder President Trump and other American officials for years. It is one of the most basic facts about the threat they pose to the national security of the United States. And yet, there are people who don't want to act against the Ayatollah [Ali Khamanei, the Iranian supreme leader] - and so they deny the assassination threats over, and over, and over, and over.”

Similar apprehensions were expressed by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who claimed in a recent Fox News interview that Iran “actively worked to assassinate” Trump because he is a “forceful and decisive” leader. “They want to kill him. He’s enemy number one.”

Intel points towards Iran proxy sleeper cells, plots to kill US leaders, including Trump

In spite of Iran's denials, there have been several intelligence inputs about Iran-connected plots to kill Trump. It was reported last July, when Trump was the Republican candidate for president, that there were attempts to kill Trump. It emerged that one of his potential assassins at the time, from Florida, had backed Iran in his writings.

The Trump campaign said in September last, just two months after the most high-profile failed bid on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, that there were intelligence inputs on “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him.”

Around that time, Trump himself posted on Truth Social: “Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire US military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.”

The then administration of Democratic president Joe Biden conveyed to Iran that any bid on Trump's life would be considered an act of war and responded to.

An Afghan, a Pakistani among allegedly plotters to kill Trump on behalf of Iran

In September 2024, the US charged Farhad Shakeri, a would-be assassin of Afghan origin, in a plot to allegedly kill Trump. In court documents, it was mentioned that the IRGC was trying to take out American officials, but the operative was later asked to solely focus on Trump.

Last August, a Pakistani national, Asif Merchant, was arrested in Texas. Merchant was charged with attempting to kill US leaders or officials, possibly including Trump, under instructions from Iran.

A possible assassination bid on Trump linked to Iran, is therefore a clear and present danger for America. That possibility has only increased after he sent B2 bombers to attack Iran's nuclear sites, and claimed that the Operation Midnight Hammer ‘obliterated’ the Iranian nuclear programme.