BBC:
Protection for Donald Trump was boosted several weeks ago after US authorities learned of an Iranian plot to kill him, according to national security officials.
Officials say there is no known connection between the alleged Iranian plot and the assassination attempt on the former president on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
However, the disclosure that security had been tightened raises further questions over how Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to climb a building and get close enough to fire at Trump.
The US Secret Service and the Trump campaign were notified of the Iranian threat, and security was increased as a result, according to a US national security official.
Intelligence sources told CBS, the BBC’s US news partner, that the Secret Service bolstered security in June in response to the Iranian threat. This included extra counter-assault and counter-sniper agents, drones and robotic dogs.
CBS reported that the details of a potential Iranian operation were obtained through “human source intelligence”, and came amid a notable increase in Iranian chatter regarding attacks against Trump.
Trump and officials including his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have faced threats from Tehran since ordering the drone strike assassination of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds force, in Iraq in 2020.
The Iranian mission at the United Nations called the report “unsubstantiated and malicious”, adding that Trump was “a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law”.
