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WASHINGTON — Iran should extradite or prosecute the high-ranking
Revolutionary Guard official accused of plotting to assassinate Saudi
Arabia's ambassador in Washington, the United States said Monday.

The
State Department also said it was supportive of Iranian consular visits
to the other main suspect in the apparent plot, Iranian-American dual
national Mansour Arbabsiar, who is currently being held in a US jail
pending trial.

Arbabsiar, a used-car salesman living in Texas, is
alleged to have tried to contract a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate
the Saudi ambassador, Adel al-Jubeir, possibly through the bombing of a
Washington restaurant.

But, according to US officials, Arbabsiar's contact in the cartel was a paid FBI informant who raised the alert.

The
complaint against Arbabsiar alleged that high-ranking officials in the
Revolutionary Guards' elite Quds Force transferred nearly $100,000 to
the informant's bank account as a downpayment for the
$1.5-million-dollar hit.

The man US officials say was Arbabsiar's
face-to-face contact in the Quds Force, Gholam Shakuri, alleged to be an
aide to Arbabsiar's cousin, was also charged with trying to murder a
foreign dignitary with a "weapon of mass destruction." It is Shakuri,
who is still believed to be in Iran, who Washington says should now be
extradited or face tr... >>>