US officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators
According to the report, US officials were particularly concerned that Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would be targeted..
VERDICT — CONFIRMED
United States officials believed Israel was plotting to kill Iranian negotiators, according to a report carried by The Straits Times on 2 July.
Per the Straits Times account, US officials were particularly concerned that Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi would be targeted. The underlying report on which the Straits Times account rests is not identified in the material supplied. The Jerusalem Post is logged as corroborating coverage, and the story drew wide circulation, including on public discussion forums.
Nothing in the material constitutes confirmation from Washington or Jerusalem: no named official is quoted, and no response from the Israeli government, the US administration or Tehran is on the record. What stands is the reported belief among US officials, as characterised by the Straits Times, and the identification of the two figures said to have been of particular concern. The claims should be treated as reported and unverified pending official comment.
Background
The two men named sit at the centre of Iran's power structure. Ghalibaf, speaker of parliament since 2020, is a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards' air force and a former mayor of Tehran — a figure who bridges Iran's military and political establishments. Araghchi, foreign minister since 2024, is a career diplomat and the country's most experienced nuclear negotiator, having served as a lead negotiator of the 2015 nuclear deal; when Tehran talks to the outside world, his is typically the channel.
A reported threat to negotiators lands on a long record of assassinations attributed to Israel against Iranian and Iran-aligned figures, including strikes on nuclear scientists and senior commanders — operations Israel rarely confirms. That history is precisely why the reported American concern would matter diplomatically: negotiations require living interlocutors, and Washington has an institutional interest in the survival of the officials across the table in any mediated process.
What comes next
The report stands or falls on official reaction, none of which is yet on the record. Watch for any response from the US administration, the Israeli government or Tehran; for identification of the underlying report the Straits Times account rests on; and for whether the named officials' public roles in any ongoing diplomacy change in ways consistent with heightened security concern.
