Two of Iran’s most prominent religious leaders have issued a fatwa calling on Muslim worldwide to avenge the death of the country’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei, who was in power for almost 40 years, was killed on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike as Jerusalem launched Operation Rising Lion in joint attacks with the US.
In response, Hossein Noori Hamedani and Naser Makarem Shirazi, grand ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic, released a fatwa – a ruling made by Islamic legal scholars – against American and Israeli interests across the globe.
The pair ruled that “avenging the blood of the martyred leader of the revolution is obligatory for all Muslims,” adding: “Without doubt, criminal America and the bloodthirsty Zionists have reached the end of their path, and this time the powerful armed forces will deliver a decisive and unforgettable response.
"The people of Iran and the Islamic world are the avengers of the blood of the martyred leader of the Revolution.
"Seeking revenge is the religious duty of all Muslims worldwide so that the evil of these criminals may be removed from the world.”
While fatwas are regularly issued on relatively minor aspects of religious law, their most high-profile use is to call for violent jihad against nations, groups or even individuals.
Perhaps most famously, Khamenei’s predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie in 1989 over the depiction of Muhammad in Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses.
Since then, Rushdie has been subjected to multiple assassination attempts, the latest coming in 2022 and costing him the sight in his right eye.
And the latest fatwa has increased concern among analysts that Iran could plan terror attacks overseas in retaliation for Khamenei’s death.
Counter-terrorism expert Ghaffar Hussain told the Daily Mail: “Iran has a long history of exporting terrorism around the world and a track record of targeting dissidents and journalists in the UK.
"This is a very real threat that has been heightened since the outbreak of the war and one that the security services must remain vigilant to.”
And Avner Vilan, a former Israeli security official, added: “What concerns me more are smaller-scale actions - either individuals who take the fatwa as inspiration, or regime supporters in Europe who may interpret it as a religious order and take matters into their own hands.
'These may not necessarily be people directly working for Iran. They could be sympathisers or Shiite supporters of the regime who decide to act independently.
"What is more likely are sporadic acts carried out by individuals or very small groups. Even one person who believes they are following a religious order can cause havoc.”
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