The US Department of Justice accused Iran on Friday of plotting the assassination of President-elect Donald Trump, in a move indicative of how the already strained relations between the two countries will shape up with the new US president.

“The charges announced today reveal Iran’s continued brazen efforts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray.

A few weeks ago, Trump’s campaign staff announced that they had been briefed by US intelligence about real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate the Republican tycoon.

At the same time, the US government filed charges against a 51-year-old Iranian man who prosecutors say was ordered by a Revolutionary Guards official last September to hatch a plan to spy on and kill Trump.

US justice has indicted Farhad Shakeri and two other men, who are also accused of plotting to kill an Iranian dissident.

Arrest warrants have been issued against them. The US government said Shakeri has not been arrested and is believed to be in Iran.

“There are few actors in the world that represent as serious a threat to US national security as Iran,” warned Attorney General Merrick Garland. “We will not tolerate the Iranian regime’s efforts to endanger American citizens and US national security,” he added.

In his previous term in the White House, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal, reimposed sanctions on Tehran and labeled the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a “terrorist organization”.

In 2020, the US armed forces killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by launching a drone strike in Baghdad on the orders of then US President Donald Trump.