Four Iranians have been charged with plotting to kidnap a New York-based journalist and human rights activist critical of Iran and take her back to Tehran, the US Department of Justice says.
Court papers did not name the target, but Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad said it was her.
Authorities said the accused – alleged intelligence officials – also plotted to lure a person in the UK and three others in Canada to Iran.
Ms Alinejad, who became a US citizen in October 2019, said she had been working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation since the agency approached her eight months ago with photographs taken by the plotters.
“They showed me the Islamic Republic had gotten very close,” she said.
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Her White Wednesday and My Stealthy Freedom campaigns have seen women film themselves without head coverings or hijabs in public in Iran, and she has also contributed to the US government-funded Voice of America Persian language service.
FBI agents warned the writer she was being watched earlier this year and moved her and her husband to several safe houses as they investigated the case, she said.
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They even asked the 44-year-old to conduct a live video online to see if Iranian intelligence could track her.
The four defendants hired private investigators under false pretences to carry out surveillance on the journalist in Brooklyn, filming her family and home, according to prosecutors.
Image: The writer and human rights activist has been critical of Iran
They claimed she was a missing person from Dubai who had fled the country to avoid paying a debt, it is alleged.
They planned “to forcibly take their intended victim to Iran, where the victim’s fate would have been uncertain at best”, said Audrey Strauss, attorney for the Southern District of New York.
It is alleged they had even researched getting her out of Manhattan on a high-speed boat headed for Caracas, Venezuela.
“Every person in the United States must be free from harassment, threats and physical harm by foreign powers,” Acting US Assistant Attorney General Mark J Lesko added.
“Through this indictment, we bring to light one such pernicious plot to harm an American citizen who was exercising their First Amendment rights.”
Ms Alinejad said Iranian operatives had tried several times to trick her into going to Turkey with threats and promises to meet family.
“I knew that this is the nature of the Islamic Republic, you know, kidnapping people, arresting people, torturing people, killing people. But I couldn’t believe it that this is going to happen to me in United States of America,” she said.
She added the alleged plot wouldn’t stop her from doing her work: “I have only one life and I’m not going to live in paranoia. I’m not going to live in fear. I have two options – feel miserable, make my oppressors feel miserable, so I choose the second one.”
William F Sweeney Jr, head of New York’s FBI office, noted that the indictment sounded a bit like “some far-fetched movie plot”.
“We allege a group, backed by the Iranian government, conspired to kidnap a US-based journalist here on our soil and forcibly return her to Iran,” he said.
Two people have been killed after a suspect shot at firefighters responding to a fire in the US state of Idaho, authorities have said.
Police were still “taking sniper fire” near the city of Coeur d’Alene on Sunday afternoon, the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office said.
Crews were responding to a fire at Canfield Mountain around 1.30pm and gunshots were reported around half an hour later, the force said.
Image: Pic: Reuters
Sheriff Bob Norris said officials believe the two killed were firefighters, and he did not know if anyone else was shot.
“We don’t know how many suspects are up there, and we don’t know how many casualties there are,” he said. “We are actively taking fire sniper as we speak.”
Mr Norris said the sniper appeared to be hiding in the rugged terrain and using a high-powered rifle, adding he had instructed his deputies to fire back.
“I’m hoping that somebody has a clear shot and is able to neutralise, because they’re not at this point in time showing any evidence of wanting to surrender,” the sheriff said.
Image: Pic: Reuters
Governor Brad Little said “multiple” firefighters were attacked.
“This is a heinous direct assault on our brave firefighters,” he said on X. “I ask all Idahoans to pray for them and their families as we wait to learn more.”
The president of the International Association of Firefighters said a third firefighter was in surgery.
In a statement on social media Edward Kelly said the firefighters “were ambushed in a heinous act of violence”. He added: “Two of our brothers were killed by a sniper, and a third brother remains in surgery.”
The sheriff’s office in neighbouring Shoshone County said authorities were “dealing with an active shooter situation where the shooter is still at large”.
Image: Smoke billows into the air after several firefighters were attacked while responding to a fire. Pic: Reuters
The fire was still raging, Mr Norris said.
“It’s going to keep burning,” he added. “Can’t put any resources on it right now.”
The FBI was sending technical teams and tactical support to the scene, its deputy director Dan Bongino said.
“It remains an active, and very dangerous scene,” he said on X.
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Donald Trump has said the US government has found a buyer for TikTok that he will reveal “in about two weeks”.
The president told Fox News “it’s a group of very wealthy people”, adding: “I think I’ll probably need China approval, I think President Xi will probably do it.”
TikTok was ordered last year to find a new owner for its US operation – or face a ban – after politicians said they feared sensitive data about Americans could be passed to the Chinese government.
The video app’s owner, Bytedance, has repeatedly denied such claims.
It originally had a deadline of 19 January to find a buyer – and many users were shocked when it “went dark” for a number of hours when that date came round, before later being restored.
However, President Trump has now extended the deadline several times.
The last extension was on 19 June, when the president signed another executive order pushing it back to 17 September.
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Mr Trump’s latest comments suggest multiple people coming together to take control of the app in the US.
Among those rumoured to be potential buyers include YouTube superstar Mr Beast, US search engine startup Perplexity AI, and Kevin O’Leary – an investor from Shark Tank (the US version of Dragons’ Den).
Bytedance said in April that it was still talking to the US government, but there were “differences on many key issues”.
It’s believed the Chinese government will have to approve any agreement.
Image: The president said the identity of the buyer would be disclosed in about two weeks. Pic: Fox News
President Trump’s interview with Fox News also touched on the upcoming end of the pause in US tariffs on imported goods.
On April 9, he granted a 90-day reprieve for countries threatened with a tariff of more than 10% in order to give them time to negotiate.
Deals have already been struck with some countries, including the UK.
The president said he didn’t think he would need to push back the 9 July deadline and that letters would be sent out imminently stating what tariff each country would face.
“We’ll look at the deficit we have – or whatever it is with the country; we’ll look at how the country treats us – are they good, are they not so good. Some countries, we don’t care – we’ll just send a high number out,” he said.
“But we’re going to be sending letters out starting pretty soon. We don’t have to meet, we have all the numbers.”
The president announced the tariffs in April, arguing they were correcting an unfair trade relationship and would return lost prosperity to US industries such as car-making.
Iran will have the capacity to begin enriching uranium again in “a matter of months”, the UN’s nuclear watchdog boss has said.
Rafael Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said that US strikes on three sites a week ago had caused “severe damage” but it was not “total”.
Mr Grossi told CBS News: “The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that.
“But as I said, frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there.”
Iran still has “industrial and technological capabilities… so if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again”, he added.
Image: A satellite overview shows excavators at tunnel entrances at the Fordow site in Iran. Pic: Maxar Technologies/Reuters
Iranian nuclear and military sites were attackedby Israel on 13 June, with the Israelis claiming Tehran was close to developing a nuclear weapon.
The US then carried out its own strikes on 22 June, hitting Iranian nuclear installations at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, under Operation Midnight Hammer.
Iran has insisted its nuclear research is for civilian energy production purposes.
US President Donald Trump said last weekend that the US deployment of 30,000lb “bunker-busting” bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.
But that claim appeared to be contradicted by an initial assessment from the US Defence Intelligence Agency.
A source said Iran’s enriched uranium stocks had not been eliminated, and the country’s nuclear programme, much of which is buried deep underground, may have been put back only a month or two.
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3:35
Did the US destroy Iran’s nuclear sites?
Mr Trump has rejected any suggestion that the damage to the sites was not as profound as he has said.
And he stated he would consider bombing Iran again if Tehran was enriching uranium to worrying levels.
At a news conference on Thursday alongside US defence secretary Pete Hegseth, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff General Dan Caine, told reporters the GBU-57 bunker buster bombs had been designed in some secrecy with exactly this sort of target in mind.
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2:46
US: Iran nuclear sites ‘obliterated’
The head of the CIA has also said a “body of credible intelligence” indicates Iran’s nuclear programme was “severely damaged”.
Director John Ratcliffe revealed that information from a “historically reliable and accurate source” suggests several key sites were destroyed – and will take years to rebuild.
Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country “slapped America in the face” by launching an attack on 23 June against a major US base in Qatar, adding the nation would never surrender.
The 12-day air conflict between Israel and Iran ended with a US-brokered ceasefire.
But the Iranian armed forces chief of staff, General Abdolrahim Mousavi, has said his country doubts Israel will maintain the truce.
A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry said the US strikes had caused significant damage to Tehran’s nuclear facilities.