February 2, 2024
The United States has named Naji Ibrahim Sharifi-Zindashti as the head of Iran’s intelligence group specializing in assassinations and kidnappings of Iranian dissidents around the world.
The US State Department said Zindashti, 49, who resides in Iran, also operates a drug gang that smuggles narcotics with protection accorded by his role as a member of the Pasdaran’s kill and kidnap organization, Unit 840. The drug and terror connection allows Zindashti to “live a life of luxury” in Iran.
Simultaneously, Britain also cited Zindashti as part of the Pasdaran’s kill and kidnap group and identified him as the organizer of the recently publicized plot by Iran to kill two news anchors working for the expatriate news outlet Iran International.
Also simultaneously, the US Justice Department announced the indictment of Zindashti and two Canadians for plotting to murder two Iranian expatriates, a man and a woman who were not named but whom the indictment said lived in Maryland.
The indictment quoted one of the Canadians as emailing the other that he would “make sure that I hit this guy [the male living in Maryland] with AT LEAST half the clip” and that “we gotta erase his head from his torso.” The indictment said the payment for the work would be $350,000 plus $20,000 for expenses.
The indictment named the Canadians as Damion Patrick John Ryan, 43, and Adam Richard Pearson, 29, both of whom it said have long criminal backgrounds. Both men are currently imprisoned in Canada awaiting trials for crimes unrelated to Iran Ryan on firearms charges and Pearson for a murder in Alberta five years ago.
The State Department said Zindashti chiefly recruited killers from foreign criminal gangs to carry out his murders and kidnapings in order to make it easier for the Islamic Republic to deny involvement.
The State Department said Zindashti has mounted operations against Iranian dissidents in many countries, specifically naming Canada, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the US and UK.
The State Department announcement did not link Zindashti to efforts to kidnap or kill Masih Alinejad at her home in Brooklyn or to efforts to target Trump Administration officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton and Iran Special Envoy Brian Hook.
It did link Zindashti to the 2020 kidnaping from Turkey of Habib Chaab, a leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz, the assassination in 2019 in Istanbul of Masud Vardanjani, an Iranian defector who had worked on Iranian cybersecurity, and the shooting death in 2017 in Istanbul of Saeed Karimian, the owner of GEM-TV, a dissident outlet based outside Iran.