US intelligence officials were skeptical of Israeli intelligence that claimed there was a threat of an Iranian assassination plot against President Trump at the NATO summit in Ankara last month, which prompted the Secret Service to secretly move him to a military aircraft, The Washington Post has reported.
A US official speaking to the Post described the intelligence, which was conveyed by Israel to the CIA, as “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence.”
Middle East Eye first reported that the intelligence came from Israel, and cited Turkish sources who said that Turkey suspected Israel had fabricated the intelligence to derail diplomacy between the US and Iran, and also potentially strain the relationship between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
According to the Post report, US intelligence officials reached a conclusion similar to that of officials in Ankara. “Some US intelligence officials saw Israel’s sharing of the warning about threats to Trump’s life as designed less to inform than to influence the president’s decision-making and US policy in the region,” the Post report said, conveying what current and former US officials told the outlet.
Apparently responding to the incident, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi warned the US to be wary of “fake intelligence.”
“The US has long miscalculated due to intelligence failures. Case in point: The war on Iran. Now, an even bigger miscalculation on the Strait of Hormuz. Worse than fake news is fake intelligence. Be careful. Allah is Great, Greater than ANY power on Earth. In Allah we trust,” the Iranian diplomat wrote on X.
President Trump confirmed the plane swap, saying he did so because he followed the Secret Service’s direction. One of the US officials speaking to the Post said that the Secret Service went ahead with the swap despite the lack of confidence in the intelligence due to the previous attempts against Trump’s life.
“The Secret Service has had three near misses with this president, so they’re not taking any chances,” the official said. “They did what they had to do.”
