Behind Iran's ‘Assassination Plot' Against Ivanka
Did the Murdoch press and a discredited network concoct a story to sabotage peace talks?
Wednesday, June 3, 2026, Istanbul
It was a blockbuster story. Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and favorite offspring was allegedly targeted for assassination by a vengeful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps “terrorist” loyal to slain Iranian foreign operations commander Qassem Soleimani.
But the story is built on flimsy evidence and half truths, with sourcing to the same network of operatives that goaded the US into the Iraq war 23 years ago. It suggests efforts to push Donald Trump back into full-scale war. Sketchy allegations that Iran had plotted to assassinate Trump were reportedly among the reasons he agreed to take part in the conflict.
The New York Post was the first news outlet that reported the Ivanka story on May 22. The article broke just as talks between Iran and the US were beginning to bear fruit.
The report alleged that Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi as well as holder of Iranian nationality, had plotted to kill Ivanka and was allegedly casing the socialite’s Florida home.
“After Qasem was killed, [Al-Saadi] went around telling people, ‘We need to kill Ivanka to burn down the house of Trump the way he burned down our house,’” the Post quoted a former Iraqi official as saying.
The story was picked up by Israeli and pro-Israel media outlets. But no serious outlets ran with it. Not even Post owner Rupert Murdoch’s flagship Wall Street Journal touched it. Not a single US official, named or unnamed, confirmed the story.
The Post story was largely attributed to a “former deputy military Iraqi attache” named Entifadh Qanbar as well another unnamed “source.”
But Qanbar, now based in Washington and running his own organization, was a close associate of the late Ahmad Chalabi and a former Washington-based director of the late exile’s Iraqi National Congress.
