Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, was targeted in an Israeli assassination plot
John Hudson and Ellen Nakashima – Washington Post July 3, 2026
Senior U.S. officials feared that Israel intended to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators as the Trump administration pursued a high-stakes deal to end the war there and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, current and former officials familiar with the matter said.
Washington’s objection to killing Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the country’s parliamentary speaker, was so acute that this spring it took the extraordinary step of asking intermediaries to warn Iran about Israel’s assassination aims, the officials said.
“You kill those folks and you’re killing the pragmatists,” said a U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. outlook on Israel’s targeted killing campaign.
As far back as March, when the Trump administration began to explore diplomatic options for ending the war, U.S. officials told Israeli counterparts not to continue killing Iran’s political leadership, said a diplomat.
That U.S. officials felt the need to take an additional step and warn Iran that its top negotiators could be killed demonstrates the strain in the U.S.-Israel relationship and the Trump administration’s limited influence over the Israeli government, said analysts.
“It shows the divergence of war aims between the U.S. and Israel and the fundamental determination on the part of Israel’s prime minister to undermine any negotiation that the U.S. might conclude,” said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department official who has advised Republican and Democratic administrations.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
When asked for comment from the White House,a U.S. official said, “The president wants the peace process to play out.”
U.S. concerns about Israeli assassinations were reported earlier by the New York Times.
When the United States and Israel started the Iran war on Feb. 28, Israel assassinated scores of Iranian political and military leaders, including Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the U.S. military focused on degrading Iran’s navy and missile capabilities.
At first, the two allies shared the goal of regime change in Iran, but they quickly decoupled as U.S. officials assessed that Tehran’s military and clerical establishment would maintain their grip on power.
More cracks emerged after Israel assassinated Iran’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, in mid-March, officials said.
“The turning point wasn’t the assassination of the supreme leader, it was the assassination of Larijani,” said a Western official. “The U.S. was looking for an Iranian official to deal with and all of a sudden he was gone.”
In recent months, Araghchi and Ghalibaf have been the key contacts for U.S. officials in securing an initial ceasefire in April and then a framework agreement to end the war in June.
Even before that framework deal was reached, Israeli officials and powerful pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington began criticizing the agreement, which closes the door on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goal of regime change in Iran and paves the way for giving Iran economic sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.
In March, President Donald Trump suggested publicly that Israel’s assassination campaign was complicating efforts to negotiate with the regime. “You know it’s a little tough,” he told reporters at the time. “They’ve wiped out everybody. I don’t want them to be killed.’
Ghalibaf was among the senior Iranian officials present in a building struck by Israel in last year’s 12-day war, Middle Eastern media, citing Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency, has reported. The New York Times reported that Ghalibaf was nearly killed this year as well when Israel targeted a meeting of senior Iranian officials in an underground bunker.
The attempted killings of Ghalibaf, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials have raised concerns in the U.S. and in the Middle East that the war may have installed a more ruthless regime with a score to settle in place of an elderly leader whose hold on power was believed to be slipping.
i wish they would assasinate kier starmer
PM breaks silence on resignation and issues Andy Burnham warning:
Story by Jack Walters • 1
The Prime minister, who could be out of No10 as early as July 17, deeply regretted the rent boy scandal which the Epstein files linked him to Zelenski
but issued a dire warning to his successor-in-waiting, Andy Burnham to avoid the traps himself
Asked if a future Prime Minister could spend less time on diplomacy than him, Sir Keir: “No, I don’t think it is possible.”He added: “There’s often this discussion – what’s the right balance between dealing with international affairs and dealing with domestic affairs? They’re one and the same thing.”
The Prime Minister, who was labelled “never here Keir” due to his time away from politics
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> During talks on ending the war earlier this year, the US warned Iran that Israel might try to kill its top negotiators
Of course it did. Then it went on about “civilisations dying tonight” and “everything will be dust”. As you do.
this warning is superfluous . israhell
does it all the time + Iran knows .
Just more fake Truman Show drama produced by the Moses Mafia. Nobody is being ‘assassinated’ or ‘targeted’ since both ‘sides’ (Usrael-Israel/Iran) are governed by the Moses Mafia.
The frothingly rabid yids murder with impunity around the whirled, yet there is a curious scarcity of genocidal jews assassinated, though the satanic tribe from way down under has been begging for a taste of their own medicine. There have been countless times that Mordor should have been bombed into smouldering rubble and jews chased through the streets and slaughtered. No group in the history of history has robbed and raped and caused so much degradation and destruction as those criminally insane demons.
Jews – the original far-worse-than-worthless parasitic orc “migrants”.
As with the concept of martyrdom, the Shia concept of hidden Imam/Leader/Mahdi is not new; the important thing is that Syed Ali Khamenei chose martyrdom because he could have easily remained protected in one of those impregnable under-mountain missile bases, and some of those bases are even immune to tactical nukes. In the 12 day war US/Zion could not assassinate him, but this time we’re talking about a situation in which some of the officials are either compromised or afflicted with severe miscalculation. In such a situation when Ali Khamenei was accused of hiding in the perfect shelters while his people could not benefit from such protection, indeed he chose to arrive to his normal working quarters, despite knowing full well that he would be targeted again by his opportunistic dumb enemy. Khamenei was old and he had many of his friend killed during the years and being a Shia, one of his fears was to die an ordinary death so he always prayed for martyrdom, even cried for it in the open when he was performing Salat for some of the other martyrs for example! Some morons would say that he committed suicide, but suicide happens when you are at the pick of mental/psychological weakness even if it applies here by some stretch of imagination, the old man had willpower of steel and there was no sign of weakness ever from him neither in his speeches nor anywhere else specially when you study his life in particular his early revolutionary life it becomes clear. With his martyrdom along with some of his family members including a kid, he empowered and saved Iran for decades to come! He is now an spiritual glue that binds, guides and motivates Iranians and other Shia elsewhere. His blood ensured that weak-links would not be able to get away from their duties and people would remain vigilant demanding justice from them. The new Khamenei is very well and will remain hidden in contrast with those officials that are still into negotiations and remain in the open. How long will he be hidden!? As long as US/Zion have the intel and assassination capability (their primary perk), and until we resume the war and the final outcome is clear. Because in the actual war, Iran has won by revolutionizing military power, today 70% of classic military forces are obsolete. Even air-defense in the classical sense is obsolete. In the next war more of the obsolete but advanced US/Zion fighter-jets will get shot down. Iran pummeled US bases in 13 countries, some of the bases are wrecked for good and it is not viable to fix them under the absolute might of Iranian short-range missiles and drones. Just think about it even now US Navy does not get close to the Persian Gulf or the strait of Hormuz and stay out of harms way; US Fifth Fleet HQ base was getting pulverized but its Navy had to stay way back and just watch! As for the God-Level multi-layered US/Zion air-defense, Iran smashed that idol and the worshipers still can’t believe their eyes! Which is why Trump has to go ahead with the Golden Dome! Prevention is Dead and US military can’t cope with real war that drags on, US fights painfully expensive while Iran fights painfully cheap and effective which is why Trump wanted the LOCUS copy of the Shahed-136 drones! The era of the quick and the “nip it in the bud” was over with Venezuela. While I think US and Zion benefit the most from this “temporary silence in the field”, Iran too is working big. Trump would love to see the obliterated enriched uranium out of Iran so that they could use Tactical Nukes but rest assured that Djinni best left in the lamp for your own sake. I will end with this quote from one of the speeches Khamenei had for the nuclear scientists decades ago:
“ما میخواهیم به دنیا اثبات کنیم که داشتن سلاح هستهای، قدرتآفرین نیست؛ به دلیل اینکه قدرتهائی که سلاح هستهای دارند، امروز دارای سختترین مشکلاتند. آنها با تهدید هستهای بر دنیا مسلط شدند، اما امروز این تهدید دیگر کاربرد ندارد. ما میخواهیم بگوئیم ما دنبال سلاح هستهای نیستیم و اقتدار را در سلاح هستهای نمیدانیم و اقتدار متکی به سلاح هستهای را هم میتوانیم بشکنیم.”
“We want to prove to the world that having nuclear weapons does not create/bring power; because the countries that have them today are suffering from the worst of problems. They became dominant by threat of nukes, however this threat no longer has any use. We want to say that we are not after nukes and we do not see power in them and we can break any power relying on nuclear weapons!”
It was very important for Khamenei to show that in principle he did not believe in nukes as a God-tier weapon specially the WMD ones and in fact his enemies believed him and now have the fear that he might have EMP warheads on ICMBs ready or what not…
In Shia Islam, Leadership comes attached with Guardianship and Khamenei proved that he was indeed as such and people realized it.
ایها صهیون نحن المقاومون و نحن المنتقمون