Was the Trump assassination threat real? This is why Turkey doubted Israel's intelligence

The extraordinary operation that saw Donald Trump slip out of  Turkey aboard a decoy aircraft last month, while the White House  maintained he was safely aboard Air Force One, took place because the Secret Service concluded that there was a credible and specific threat to the president's life.

The episode unfolded on July 8, as the NATO summit in Ankara drew to a close. American officials engineered an elaborate switch, moving the president into a catering container to shift him unseen to a different aircraft, while journalists and several senior officials were flown out on the decoy Air Force One. Only a handful of officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio knew they might effectively be serving as bait. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller were kept entirely in the dark.

Before leaving the summit, Trump had told aides he would fly back on the older Air Force One rather than the Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar, the aircraft that had carried him to Turkey. He boarded the ageing jet in full view of the cameras, while reporters were told to keep their window shades down. Video footage later released showed that Trump was quickly moved out through a catering container onto a nearby C-32A, the military variant of the Boeing 757, waiting nearby. The container appears to have travelled from the nose of Air Force One to the tail of the C-32A. The C-32A then departed to the UK with its transponders switched off.

At RAF Mildenhall, the older Air Force One directed the air traffic control to let the C-32A land first. It touched down at 10.20pm, nine minutes ahead of the older Air Force One. The Qatari jet had already landed hours before. Once on the ground, Trump was reportedly shifted from the C-32A back to the older Air Force One, creating the impression that he had flown out of Turkey on the ageing plane all along. He then boarded the Qatari jet once more for the return leg to Washington.

According to American and Israeli intelligence, the deception was driven by reports that an Iranian covert unit was preparing to assassinate Trump. Operatives said to be in the vicinity of the summit were reportedly armed with shoulder-fired missiles capable of bringing down Air Force One. The intelligence was considered unusually precise, reportedly identifying not just Trump's building in Ankara but the exact floor he was on.

Iranian threats against Trump have a long history, tracing back to his 2020 order to kill Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC commander, and hardening further after he approved the Israeli strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier this year. Banners calling for Trump's assassination appeared in Tehran in the aftermath of Khamenei's death. American authorities have also uncovered plots against him tied to individuals with alleged Iranian links, among them Asif Merchant and Farhad Shakeri, Iranian assets employed in the New York City area.

The warning about the Ankara missile threat came from Israel, and its timing was critical. Trump was, at the time, pursuing a deal with Tehran to end the recent war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and had spoken optimistically of the negotiations. Benjamin Netanyahu's government took a different view, favouring renewed hostilities and harder strikes on Iranian energy sites and leadership. The Israeli report came just as Trump appeared to be making progress with Tehran.

Turkish officials, meanwhile, were unconvinced. Even as their security services worked closely with the Secret Service to secure the airport and manage the sudden change of aircraft, one official said that it was clear to them the report could not be true. Ankara suspected Israel had invented the threat for several reasons at once: to present Netanyahu as Trump's protector, to derail the peace talks with Iran and to sow discord between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Israel had its own stake in straining American-Turkish ties as well, since Trump had indicated during the summit that he was willing to lift sanctions on Turkey and clear the sale of F-35 jets to Ankara, a prospect Netanyahu opposed as a threat to Israel's military edge in the region.

Despite Ankara's doubts, the Secret Service considered the Israeli warning credible. Etimesgut air base, where the presidential aircraft were based, is close enough to civilian buildings, some barely 500 metres from the runway. That made the danger from a short-range missile acute.

For Trump, who relies heavily on his strongman image, being smuggled out in a catering truck would have been a PR disaster. Trump later told reporters that his own jet had faced the greater risk, arguing that an unmarked aircraft was more likely to be targeted than the decoy. The episode, however, showed how personal the stakes of the war with Iran have become for Trump.