Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has posted on the internet an explicit proclamation calling for an attack on Donald Trump in revenge for last year’s killing of its top military commander, Gen Qasem Soleimani.
The photomontage, on his official website, appears to show the former US president playing golf in the shadow of a fighter jet or a giant drone.
‘Vengeance Is Definite’
The website image is labeled “vengeance is definite”.
Twitter has blocked a small account that first posted a picture on Twitter.
A spokesman told Reuters that the account – @khamenei_site – was fraudulent and violated Twitter’s fraud and spam policy.
Iran’s Supreme Leader On Twitter
However, this post was also shared and retweeted with Ayatollah Khamenei’s huge Farsi Twitter account with over 300,000 followers. It has since disappeared from that account.
In a tweet, written in Persian, the word “revenge” is red and the whole post is: “Soleimani’s murderer and he who ordered it will have to pay”.
On the official website of Ayatollah Khomeini, the picture is in bold type. The accompanying text quotes a comment he made on December 16, and vowed to retaliate “at any time”.
Reactions
Twitter had been urged to take action after several users expressed what they saw as a shift in attitude in Mr Trump’s ban but not the Iranian leader.
Twitter shut down Mr. Trump’s influential account earlier this month after the publication of a post that was widely thought to promote violence against American Capitol.
“How come this atrocious psychopath can openly call for the assassination of a former US president, and not be kicked out of Twitter?” one user wrote in English.
“Trump’s banned but this is perfectly ok. Is this a joke?” another user wrote.
Gen Soleimani’s Link
An Iranian tweet refers to Gen Soleimani, who was killed by an American drone in Baghdad last year.
Under Solimoani’s leadership, Iran had strengthened Iranian militant groups, increased its military presence in Iraq and Syria and organized Syria to fight rebel groups in a long-running civil war.
Mr Trump said at the time the general was “directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions of people”.
Iran responded by launching a barrage of missiles at an Iraqi airbase housing US troops and warned of further attacks, with Ayatollah Khamenei saying at the time that “severe revenge awaits the criminals”.
Twitter banned a tweet from the ayatollah earlier this month that described coronavirus vaccines developed in the UK and the US as “untrustworthy”.
