Following Sir Salman Rushdie’s stabbing on Friday, Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have been threatened by Iran’s official media that they are the next in line.
In a front-page article published on Sunday, the Kayhan daily, whose editor is directly selected by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed that following Rushdie, “it is now the time of Trump and Pompeo.”
According to The Daily Telegraph, the editorial declared: “God has taken his retribution on Rushdie.
The assault on him demonstrates that it is not difficult to exact the same retaliation on Trump and Pompeo, and as a result, they will feel more threatened for their lives going forward.
British-American author Salman Rushdie, 75, was being stabbed up to 10 times on stage at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York when 24-year-old Hadi Matar jumped onto the platform.
Matar, a Lebanese-born American citizen, was arrested right afterwards and accused of trying to kill someone.
His mother told DailyMail.com that he withdrew after travelling to Lebanon in 2018, but she had no idea he had turned radical, and she has since distanced herself from him.
Threats have long been made against the former president and his secretary of state.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi publicly vowed to exact revenge on the two men in January, marking the second anniversary of the death of Qassim Soleimani, the ruthless leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force.
As they left the international airport in Baghdad on January 2, 2020, Soleimani, 62, and other people were killed by an American airstrike.
According to the Pentagon, Trump gave the order to kill the prominent general as a “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad.”
The following statement was made by Raisi in January of this year: “If the circumstances for a fair trial of Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo and other criminals become available, they will be charged for committing this heinous crime and will face the consequence of their criminal actions.”
“However, let there be no doubt that I say here to all American statesmen that the hand of retaliation will eventually come out of the sleeve of our country,” he continued.
The assassination attempts against Pompeo by Iran are “real and ongoing,” according to Anthony Blinken, who took over for Pompeo as secretary of state, in April.
The United States accused a member of the Revolutionary Guard of planning to kill John Bolton, a national security advisor to Trump, on Wednesday.
The Justice Department claimed that Shahram Poursafi, 45, of Tehran, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, was most likely driven to assassinate Bolton out of retaliation for the passing of Soleimani.
According to reports, Pompeo was the second target.
Poursafi has not been located.
The author, who has been facing execution in Iran since 1989 for penning The Satanic Verses, suffered damage to his liver, severed nerves in one arm, and, according to his agent, he may lose his sight in one eye. He was also left with damage to his kidneys.
Even though doctors were able to take Rushdie off a ventilator, his son Zafar, 42, reported on Sunday morning that his father’s condition remained “critical.”
Zafar reported that he could speak a few words and that “his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remain intact.”
My father is still in critical condition in the hospital, according to London-based PR agent Zafar.
He was taken off the ventilator and extra oxygen yesterday, and he was able to utter a few words, which gives us great relief.
“Despite his severe, potentially life-changing injuries, he still maintains his usual feisty, rebellious sense of humour.”
“We are so appreciative of the love and support we have received from all over the world, as well as the brave audience members who bravely jumped to his defence and provided first aid, as well as the police and doctors who have taken care of him.
“As the family gathers at his bedside, we ask for continued patience and privacy.”
Zafar’s powerful statement was released just before fresh mug shots from the Chautauqua County Jail in Mayville, New York, were made public.
A witness to the incident wrote about the horrific incident in a CNN opinion piece.
Lydia Strohl penned the following: “A man leaps onstage, hate on two feet, storming Rushdie with lightning speed.”
The author stands up and moves backwards to avoid him, but his black suit and polished shoes are unprepared for the youth in trainers with his head wrapped like a ninja and his body a cyclone of anonymous rage.
The renowned author is on the “road to recovery,” and it was also disclosed that he is anticipated to survive the attack.
It will take a while; the injuries are severe, but his condition is improving, said agent Andrew Wylie on Sunday afternoon.
And a friend who visited Rushdie this morning confirmed that he can now “talk and joke.”
Since Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s then Supreme Leader, issued a fatwa, or decree, in 1989 calling The Satanic Verses blasphemous and urging Muslims to kill the author, the Indian-born author has had to live under the threat of violence.
After District Attorney Jason Schmidt claimed that Matar had deliberately placed himself in a position to harm the author, the judge ordered that he be held without bail.
According to Mr. Schmidt, “Mr. Rushdie was the target of a deliberate, unprovoked attack.”
According to the prosecution, he arrived a day early with a fake ID after purchasing an advance pass to the lecture.
In Fairview, New Jersey, where neighbours described them as a “normal, very nice, very American family,” he is thought to have resided with his mother and two sisters.
Friends claim that Matar is a reclusive devout Muslim who has never mentioned Iran or Rushdie.
After running onto the stage and repeatedly stabbing the author, the alleged attacker was forced to the ground.
Since the attack “didn’t have any sense of reality,” Henry Reese, who was also hurt and was scheduled to moderate an on-stage discussion with Rushdie, initially believed it was a bad prank.
Meanwhile, Rushdie’s remarks to a German magazine, which he made two weeks ago but didn’t publish until after his stabbing, show the author’s unwavering optimism in the face of “scary times.”
A fatwa is an important document, he said. Fortunately, the internet wasn’t around then. The fatwa was faxed to the mosques by the Iranians.
“That all happened a long time ago. My life is back to being very normal right now.
After the Satanic Verses, the author’s fourth book, was deemed blasphemous, Iran issued a call for Muslims all over the world to kill him.
Rushdie spent ten years in hiding in London, under police protection, before Iran’s government gradually ended its support for the death penalty without formally rescinding it.
After Mohammad Khatami, the newly elected Iranian president, declared that he no longer supported the fatwa, Rushdie emerged from a decade-long exile in 1998.
The bounty on Rushdie’s head was raised to $3 million as a result of some Muslims continuing to support Ayatollah Khamenei’s extreme decree.
Rushdie, who became a citizen of the US in 2016 and resides in New York City, said he was most concerned about threats to American democracy.
The most crucial part there is Trump’s victory over the truth. He said: “His people think that the others, not him, are lying to them.
I believe something very good is happening in the young generation, Shdie continued, expressing his optimism for the future.
“It is much more activist-inclined.” We are now seeing a combative generation come of age, which is one that we need need.
We want individuals with organisational skills as well as those who are willing to engage in conflict. Fighters. for a culture worth living in.
“As an author, I also note that young writers are once again serving as role models, as opposed to how it used to be, which was mostly with the deceased.”