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CAIR Executive Director Suggests Suspected Iranian Scheme to Kill Trump an ‘Israeli Plot to Ignite Another War’
Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Photo: Screenshot
The head of the the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pushed a baseless conspiracy theory suggesting that Israel was behind a suspected Iranian plot to assassinate former US President Donald Trump.
“Are you sure this is not an Israeli plot to ignite another war between the US and other countries in the Middle East at its behest?” tweeted Nihad Awad, co-founder and executive director of CAIR.
Awad was responding to a new CNN report that intelligence officials increased US Secret Service security for Trump after learning of Iran’s plans to murder the former president. There is no indication that the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday, when he was shot in the ear but survived without major injuries during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, was connected to the suspected Iranian plot.
Iran has denied association with any plot to murder the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani saying that the regime “strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack on Trump or claims about Iran’s intention for such an action.”
However, Kanaani stated that Iran will continue to seek retribution against Trump after the US during his presidency killed Qassem Soleimani — a commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization — in a drone strike. Soleimani was as the head of the IRGC’s elite Quds force branch, which is responsible for Iran’s proxies and terror operations abroad. He is revered by the Islamic Republic as a martyr and is commemorated across the country.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to pursue legal action against Trump for his direct role in the crime of assassinating Martyr General Qassem Soleimani,” Kanaani said.
Beyond Trump, Iran has been accused of plotting to kill several former Trump administration officials.
In August 2022, the US Justice Department charged a member of the IRGC with plotting to murder former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, who served in the Trump administration. The US government has also previously assessed that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Iran envoy Brian Hook, both of whom served under Trump, were targeted by Iran. The US has spent millions of dollars providing round-the-clock, security details for Pompeo and Hook.
It is unclear why Awad suggested without evidence that Israel, an arch foe of Iran, was actually responsible for the alleged Iranian plot against Trump. However, it fits with a pattern of CAIR officials making controversial anti-Israel statements during the ongoing war in Gaza.
Awad, for example, said he was “happy” to witness the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’ murderous rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
Awad was referring to the blockade that Israel and Egypt enforced on Gaza after Hamas took control of the Palestinian enclave in 2007, to prevent the terrorist group from importing weapons and other materials and equipment for attacks.
About a week later, the executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles office, Hussam Ayloush, said that Israel “does not have the right” to defend itself from Palestinian violence. He added in his sermon at the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City that for the Palestinians, “every single day” since the Jewish state’s establishment has been comparable to Hamas’ Oct. 7 onslaught.
Last week, CAIR decried US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines’ statement that “actors tied to Iran’s government” have encouraged and provided financial support to anti-Israel protests that have erupted across the US during the Israel-Hamas war. CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell argued that Haines’ statement could incite hate crime attacks against Muslim and Palestinian protesters opposing the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that CAIR “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post CAIR Executive Director Suggests Suspected Iranian Scheme to Kill Trump an ‘Israeli Plot to Ignite Another War’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.