Iran’s hardliners have threatened to kill former US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after the… stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie – allegedly by Hadi Matar, a Muslim hailed by the religious regime in Tehran.
The Kayhan newspaper, whose editor was personally selected by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has suggested that after Rushdie, “it is now Trump and Pompeo’s turn.”
“God has taken revenge on Rushdie. The attack on him shows that it is not difficult to take similar revenge against Trump and Pompeo and from now on they will feel that their lives are in more danger,” reads the front page. of the newspaper. editorial today.
In January this year on the first anniversary of the murder of Qassem Soleimani the commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, publicly threatened Trump and Pompeo with retaliation.
“If the terms for a fair trial of Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo and other criminals become available, they will be charged with committing this heinous crime and will suffer the consequences of their criminal actions.
“Let no doubt, however, that I am here saying to all American statesmen that the hand of vengeance will eventually come out of our nation’s sleeve.”
Murder plot ‘real and underway’
Iran’s Attempts to Ban Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. to kill “are real and ongoing,” his successor Anthony Blinken told Congress in April.
While the motive for the attack on Rushdie is not yet clear, Iranian opposition forces in exile have no doubt that the knifeman was influenced by Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini’s death sentence on Rushdie for his book Satanic Verses.
“These fatwas for killing people whose ideas you disagree with are nothing new in the history of Islam in Iran,” Dr. Abbas Milani of Stanford University at London-based Iran International TV.
“They have also been issued by fanatic and extremist religious leaders against dozens of Iranian writers and intellectuals. But to promulgate it against citizens of foreign and democratic countries is simply abhorrent and amounts to religious fascism,” said Dr. Milani.
The current Iranian leadership has never revoked the fatwa, arguing that “it is still valid as an edict of a grand ayatollah”.
The headline of the front page story in the Kayhan newspaper reads: “God has taken revenge on Rushdie. Now it’s Trump and Pompeo’s turn”.