President Donald J. Trump returns to the White House on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, after meeting with GOP leadership at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. to discuss the bipartisan housing bill and the SAVE Act. (Official White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

New Israeli intelligence says Iran’s elite Quds Force – part of the pro-regime Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – has established a new unit called “Mukhtar” dedicated to targeting U.S. officials, in particular President Donald Trump.

The report has appeared in Israeli media, including the conservative, pro-Netanyahu “Channel 14,” which claims intel reveals that the “Mukhtar” unit is working with Mexican drug cartels, as well as with some Iranians already living abroad, to plan and carry out assassinations of U.S. political leaders, especially Trump.

The Quds Force is known for specializing in unconventional warfare, intelligence and covert external operations, and is often characterized as Iran’s main instrument for projecting power abroad. As such, it reportedly directs, trains and arms various militias and political movements worldwide.

The Channel 14 report, and others including a similar Telegram post from popular Israeli podcaster Amir Tsarfati, came in the wake of the multi-day funeral for former Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, taking place from July 4 to July 9, which inspired calls for assassination of Trump and other U.S. leaders. Khamenei was killed alongside several relatives on Feb. 28, when a joint U.S.-Israeli airstrike destroyed his compound in Tehran.

According to the London-based, Persian-language, anti-regime Iran International website: “Hardline Iranian newspapers called for avenging Ali Khamenei’s killing on Monday, with some demanding that those responsible for his death be targeted.

“The calls come as funeral ceremonies for the former Supreme Leader continue across Iran.

“The ultraconservative Asr-e Iranian (Age of Iranians), a newspaper close to the Paydari Party, devoted its front page to the demand, using the headline: ‘Blood for blood.’

“The newspaper added that revenge was both ‘the right of the people and the duty of officials.’

“Another hardline publication, Nobonyad (Nascent) carried a similar message, asking: ‘Why shouldn’t we kill the one who killed our leader?'”

Iran’s obsession with assassinating Trump

Iran has a history of trying to kill President Donald Trump. Three days after the Nov. 5, 2024 presidential election, Politico reported: “The Iranian government ordered an operative to assassinate Donald Trump before the 2024 election, Manhattan federal prosecutors said Friday, the latest in a string of assassination plots directed at the former and future president in recent months.

“Prosecutors charged Farhad Shakeri with murder-for-hire and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He is believed to be in Iran and remains at large, prosecutors said.”

Indeed, according to the criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan federal court, Shakeri told the FBI he had been ordered by Iran’s IRGC to spy on and assassinate Trump, Politico reported.

According to the charging papers, the report said, Shakeri told an IRGC official that assassination would be too expensive, but was told “money’s not an issue,” which Shakeri “understood to mean that the IRGC previously had spent a significant sum of money on efforts to murder Victim-4” – that’s Iran’s code name for President Donald Trump – “and was willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt to procure Victim-4’s assassination.”

“One month later,” Politico added, “on Oct. 7, according to prosecutors, the IRGC ordered Shakeri to put forward a plan to assassinate Trump within one week and, if that proved impossible, to pause the plan until after Election Day, because the IRGC assumed Trump would lose, making him easier to kill. According to the complaint, Shakeri claimed in the FBI interview that he didn’t “intend to propose a plan to murder” Trump within the timeframe dictated by the IRGC official.

According to India-based news website “The Week”: Iran’s new plot to kill the U.S. president “comes as chants calling for the death of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dominated the funeral ceremony of Khamenei.

“A senior adviser to the leader declared on Iranian television that people will avenge the blood of Khamenei. ‘The murderers of the martyred Imam will not die a natural death, and the people will avenge his blood. The regime will avenge his blood. It is impossible to imagine that the murderers of the leader will live and the world will continue to turn. Revenge must be taken.'”