US plots to assassinate leaders while accusing others of kidnapping ops: Zarif

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that the US government is involved in hatching assassination plots against the leaders of certain countries while accusing others of kidnapping operations to conceal its criminal acts.

According to Press TV, he made the comment in a tweet posted on Friday, which was accompanied by excerpts from the American media indicating the US involvement in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise and plots for the ouster and targeted killing of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Zarif said the assassination plots against the aforementioned leaders are hatched by “US-affiliated gunmen” on American soil but the US administration “covers up its criminal ties” by accusing other countries of “a childishly conceived kidnapping operation."

“US-affiliated gunmen hatch plots on US soil to assassinate leaders in Venezuela & Haiti while US government busily covers up its criminal ties by accusing others of a patently ridiculous, childishly conceived kidnapping operation,” The FM said.   

“Put your house in order before throwing bricks at others,” he added.

The 53-year-old Haitian president was killed in an armed attack at his private residence in the capital Port-au-Prince by a group of gunmen who spoke Spanish and English.

Police in Haiti said the assassination was carried out by a commando unit of 26 Colombian and two American mercenaries identified as James Solages and Joseph Vincent, both from Florida.

Seventeen of the men were captured, including the two American citizens, and three others were killed and eight remain at large.

Moreover, the Venezuelan president has on several occasions accused the US government of plotting to oust him through the military invasion of the Latin American country and to assassinate him.

Earlier in the month, Maduro said the chief of US military’s Southern Command Craig Faller and CIA Director William Burns, who recently visited Colombia and Brazil, had come to finish "preparations" for a "violent plan" to assassinate him.

SS