New Delhi: Two wives, one in Tehran and another in Karachi; two sprawling bungalows in the port city’s upmarket Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Malir Town districts; three cars and five cell phones; an investment portfolio of over $70 million, and allegations of bank fraud. Although Asif Raza Merchant’s life story had plenty of colour, he seemed to prefer the cool tones of cash, not the blood-red of killing.
Last month, though, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents arrested 1979-born Merchant, on charges of hiring hitmen to assassinate prominent United States politicians “who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world”.
This plot, diplomatic sources familiar with the case told ThePrint, is suspected to part of a larger effort by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organisation and its Ministry of Intelligence to grow the country’s capability to covertly retaliate against the killing of its top officials, scientists and political allies by Israel and the United States.
Large numbers of Pakistani Shi’a served in Iran’s Zainabiyoun Brigade militia during the country’s war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The country’s intelligence services have since worked to develop those linkages as it seeks to deter attacks by adversaries with superior military and economic capabilities.
Educated at the Newports Institute of Communications and Economics near Karachi, hailing from a well-off family of ethnic-Gujarati Ismailis, Merchant had worked for over a decade at the Bank of Punjab, a Lahore-headquartered institution owned by the provincial government, his résumé reveals.
Two years ago, Karachi-based sources familiar with the case told ThePrint, he was sacked by the bank amid allegations that he was embezzling money from the PKR 1,830 crore asset portfolio he handled on behalf of its clients, and taking bribes in return for securing loans.
From 2017, the sources said, Merchant began travelling to Iran, beginning with a pilgrimage in November 2017. Last year, under circumstances which remain unclear, the father of two married a woman in Tehran, and shuttled between the city and Karachi several times over the coming year. He also travelled to the United States in November 2023, and again in April.
This time, the United States Department of Justice alleges, Merchant met with an individual he knew had a criminal background, seeking to recruit him in a plot to steal confidential data, organise protests, and kill “a political person”.
Although media have reported that Merchant’s intended targets might have included former US President Donald Trump, the official indictment offers no specifics, saying only that he was seeking to kill “a politician or US government officials”.
Like the purported hitman hired by alleged Indian intelligence operative Nikhil Gupta to assassinate a Sikh separatist terrorist, the criminal contacted by Merchant was in fact an FBI informant.
“The world is full of ambitious people on the make,” an Indian intelligence official told ThePrint, “who sometimes approach intelligence services claiming to have links who can secure national objectives. For an intelligence service, it might not be a big deal to spend a few thousand dollars on the off-chance, especially if it seems there’s a low chance of getting caught.”
“Lots of people seem to imagine you can shop for a hitman, the same way you can buy things on Amazon,” the officer added. “They often discover the hard way that this is not true.”
According to the US Justice Department, Merchant told the hitman the plot “was not a one-time opportunity and would be ongoing”. Merchant put a $5,000 cash advance through a hawala dealer, saying he had “prayed to God about whether [he] should do this work or not and received clarity from God to carry out his mission”.
Iran’s secret war
Even though India counts Iran amongst its allies — and has committed to invest $120 million in the country’s port at Chabahar, in defiance of US sanctions — it has been caught up in the secret war Tehran is waging against another key partner, Israel. In 2021, Iran’s intelligence services were suspected to have planted a bomb which detonated just metres from Israel’s embassy in New Delhi, apparently targeting diplomats leaving work.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which was handed the case after the Delhi Police were accused of mishandling forensic evidence, has so far failed to identify the potential perpetrators.
Earlier, Iran’s intelligence services were blamed for the 2012 attempted assassination of Tal Yehoshua Koren, the wife of an Israeli diplomat who was targeted amidst a series of attacks in Tbilisi and Bangkok.
The Delhi Police had arrested journalist Syed Mohammad Kazmi for his alleged role in Koren’s attempted assassination, but failed to file charges against him within the legally mandated period. No convictions have been obtained in the case.
Even though Iran’s intelligence services have had a close working relationship with India’s Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), they have also cooperated with anti-India terrorists on occasion. For example, Iranian intelligence officials are said to have released Muhammad Asif, an alleged al-Qaeda jihadist from Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh, who was tasked with recruiting jihadists in India.
Following the formation of al-Qaeda’s South Asia unit in April 2014, the Delhi Police have alleged in a still-ongoing trial, Asif was ordered to return to India from a training camp in Pakistan. Travelling again through Paktika, Ghazni and Zabul in Afghanistan, Asif reached the Pakistan-Iran border before heading to Zahedan.
Arrested in Zahedan by Iranian authorities searching for illegal immigrants, Asif told police he was taken to a civilian home. “There, I disclosed that I was doing jihad against the United States of America to one Urdu-speaking Iranian officer,” he told police.
Even though Iran has often been targeted by jihadist organisations, it harbours top jihadists like al-Qaeda’s Saif al-Adel, seeing them as tactical allies against the United States.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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