U.S. official, 'Multiple' sources strengthen case against Iran

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. will make sure that Iranian officials are held accountable for "reckless behavior" in what he said was their direct role in an alleged assassination plot against the Saudi Arabian ambassador in the United States.


Obama said the U.S. will be able to support all of its allegations of Iranian involvement. "Those facts are there for all to see," he told a joint White House news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.


The State Department said the United States has had "direct contact" with the Iranian government about the incident.


Two men, including a member of Iran's Quds Force special foreign actions unit, were charged in New York federal court on Tuesday with conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Abel Al-Jubeir, at a Washington restaurant. People in the Iranian government "were aware of this plot," Obama  said. "There has to be accountability."


He said that one of the suspects was an individual of Iranian-American descent and had "direct links, was paid by, and was directed by individuals in the Iranian government."


Obama said the scheme follows "a pattern of reckless behavior by the Iranian government."

"He was very disorganized, he would lose most anything and he would get the dates of the cars wrong," Tomscha said. "He'd tell you it was an '89 and maybe it was an '85. One thing you could be sure, whatever date he told you, it wasn't that year."
The disorganization extended to his personal life.
"He wouldn't pay his bills, not because he didn't have the money necessarily, but because he would forget to pay them," Tomscha said. "If it wasn't for his wife, he'd be homeless on the street."
Earlier this week, another friend Mitchel Hamauei, who has known Arbabsiar for 20 years, said he didn't seem to have strong views on politics or religion.
"It was shocking because it didn't seem like he would be the type of person to do something like that," Hamauei said, adding that he met Arbabsiar through mutual Iranian friends.
Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are accused of a conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, the FBI said Tuesday.
Arbabsiar was arrested in September. Shakuri remains at large, the bureau said.
The two were in a group that began planning this spring to kill Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir, the FBI said.
"I don't think he's the Manchurian candidate," said Tomscha. "He came over. He liked this country. He made money here."
Arbabsiar has had prior brushes with the law, but they were for minor infractions.
Public records show three arrests for Arbabsiar over the past 25 years. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail for evading arrest in 1987, and he pleaded "no contest" to a lesser charge in 2004 after he was arrested for driving on a suspended license. Arbabsiar also received a speeding ticket in 2007 for going more than 10 mph over the limit. A 2001 theft charge against Arbabsiar was dismissed, CNN affiliate KIII-TV reported.
According to the allegations he now faces, Arbabsiar and an undercover informant discussed using explosives to kill the Saudi ambassador and possibly attacking a crowded restaurant, according to an FBI affidavit released Tuesday.
The informant named $1.5 million as his price, it said.
Arbabsiar allegedly sent $100,000 intended as a down payment, telling the informant his "cousin" had deep pockets, court documents said.
"He didn't strike me as the kind of guy who would want to go out there and murder hundreds of innocent people," Tomscha said. "That takes a real callous person and he never stuck me like that."