Adel al-Jubeir

Adel al-Jubeir is a Saudi diplomat who served as Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States from 2007 to 2015 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2015 to 2018. He was the target of the 2011 IRGC-Quds Force assassination plot, in which Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, directed by Abdul Reza Shahlai, planned to have him killed at a Washington DC restaurant using explosives — potentially causing mass civilian casualties. The plot was disrupted by the FBI after Arbabsiar unwittingly engaged a DEA informant posing as a Mexican cartel hitman.

The failed assassination attempt became a landmark case in US-Iran relations, prompting new sanctions on IRGC-QF operatives and deepening Saudi-Iranian tensions. Al-Jubeir subsequently served as Saudi Arabia's chief diplomat during a period of intense regional rivalry with Iran.