By, Dilip Bora.
Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei pledged to take revenge for the death of his father as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was buried in the holy city of Mashhad.
“We pledge that we will take revenge for the pure blood of the martyred leader and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced killers,” he said in a funeral message reported by Iranian state media.
“Revenge is the demand of our nation and must certainly be carried out,” he added. “Soon, the free people of the world will carry out a part of this divine mission.”
The younger Khamenei, who has not been seen since the war began, did not attend any public events as part of his father’s weeklong funeral. The statement attributed to him, like all others issued in his name as supreme leader, was a written message.
President Donald Trump earlier warned Iran against any attempts to assassinate him after Khamenei’s funeral saw numerous English-language banners openly calling for Trump to be killed along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
A thousand missiles “are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat,” Trump wrote in the overnight post.
Trump said he had issued instructions to the U.S. military to follow in the event of his death, adding that they would “completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran.”
The Iran war’s opening moments on Feb. 28 saw an airstrike that killed long-serving leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86. Iran only buried Khamenei this week in a sprawling funeral ceremony that saw his body taken to five cities in both Iran and Iraq.
Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was seriously wounded in the same attack, sources previously told NBC News. Though Iranian officials have downplayed reports of his injuries, no photo or audio recording of him has been released.
The late supreme leader was laid to rest at the shrine of Imam Reza, Iran’s holiest Shia Muslim site on Thursday, marking the end of six days of public mourning ceremonies. Neither the U.S. nor Israel directly targeted funeral sites during the ceremonies.
The threats against Trump have further underlined the tensions gripping the Middle East as an interim deal to end the war buckles under repeated crossfire in the region.