The terrorists who walk among us

On March 6, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the conviction of Asif Merchant, an operative of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, on charges of murder for hire and attempting to commit an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries.

Merchant was not merely a sympathizer or an online radical. He was a trained operative of Iran’s global terrorist force. According to evidence presented at trial, he entered the United States in 2024 with a chilling assignment from his handlers: He was to recruit criminals to steal documents, stage protests, and ultimately assassinate an American political leader or government official — possibly even the president of the United States.

Merchant met with people he believed were hitmen in New York. In reality, they were undercover law-enforcement officers. He laid out the plan bluntly, even making a “finger-gun” gesture to indicate the job involved killing someone. Merchant paid a $5,000 advance toward the assassination and expected to direct the operation from overseas after leaving the United States.

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Fortunately, the FBI and its partners were already watching. Merchant was arrested before he could leave the country and before any attack could be carried out. A federal jury has now convicted him, and he faces up to life in prison.

The swift action of American law enforcement deserves praise. But the larger lesson should make every American uneasy.

Merchant was not an isolated case.

For decades, terrorist organizations and state sponsors of terror have attempted to establish networks inside the United States. Sometimes they hide behind charities, academic institutions, or advocacy groups. Sometimes they arrive as students or visitors. Sometimes they operate through seemingly respectable think tanks or community organizations.

One of the most notorious examples emerged in Florida. Sami Al-Arian, once a professor at the University of South Florida, was prosecuted for helping raise funds and support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization responsible for numerous attacks against Israelis — including the 1995 bus bombing in Gaza that murdered my daughter Alisa.

Al-Arian ultimately pleaded guilty to supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad and acknowledged that the organization was a terrorist group. His case revealed how extremist networks could embed themselves inside American institutions while quietly aiding violence overseas.

Merchant’s case shows that the threat has evolved.

Today the danger increasingly comes not only from terrorist organizations but from foreign governments that deploy trained operatives directly into the United States. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has spent decades building a global infrastructure for assassinations, bombings, and intimidation campaigns. Its targets have included dissidents in Europe, Israeli diplomats abroad, and Jewish institutions around the world.

Now we have confirmation — again — that Iranian operatives are willing to attempt political assassinations on American soil.

According to prosecutors, Merchant traveled repeatedly between Pakistan and Iran, receiving training in surveillance and countersurveillance. His mission in the United States was to recruit individuals who could remain behind to carry out operations after he left. In other words, he was not planning a single attack. He was attempting to build an operational network inside the United States.

That should set off alarm bells.

For years Americans have been told that terrorism is something that happens “over there” — in the Middle East or in distant conflict zones. But the infrastructure of terrorism often begins quietly inside open societies like ours.

The United States is attractive precisely because it is open. Our universities welcome foreign students. Our cities welcome visitors. Our immigration system — however imperfect — allows people to enter and pursue opportunity.

But openness also creates vulnerability.

Hostile regimes understand this well. Iran’s leaders still chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” while their proxies — Hezbollah, Hamas, and others — have killed Americans and Israelis for decades.

The Iranian regime has not changed its ideology. It has only refined its tactics.

The Merchant case is a reminder that Iran’s strategy now includes sending operatives into the United States to recruit accomplices and plan attacks.

The good news is that American law enforcement stopped this plot before anyone was harmed. The FBI, local police and federal prosecutors deserve credit for dismantling the scheme and bringing Merchant to justice.

But vigilance cannot end with one conviction.

The threats posed by state-sponsored terrorism are persistent and adaptive. The operatives may change. The tactics may evolve. But the objective remains the same: to sow fear, violence and political chaos inside democratic societies.

Terrorists are not only in distant training camps.

Sometimes they are already here.

Stephen M. Flatow of Long Branch, formerly of West Orange, is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror” (now available in an expanded paperback edition on Amazon) and is the president of the Religious Zionists of America-Mizrachi.