Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib has warned of American and Israeli attempts to target Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or to stir unrest within Iran, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n
Khatib, as reported by the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) on Saturday evening, said that the Supreme Leader is the “pillar,” and “for this reason, the enemies seek to target him and carry out actions that threaten this axis of unity.”<\/p>\n
It was unclear whether the minister was referring to a specific incident or plot, but Iranian officials frequently speak of foreign conspiracies, often attributing them to the United States and Israel. However, direct references to the Supreme Leader\u2019s personal security have been rare, until the Iran-Israel war last summer.<\/p>\n
On June 13, Israel launched an unprecedented attack on Iran, triggering a 12-day war in which the United States briefly participated by striking three major Iranian nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n
On November 11, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he feared for Khamenei\u2019s life in June during the war, warning that the leader\u2019s assassination, if it had occurred, could have caused internal divisions.<\/p>\n
Pezeshkian added in a video broadcast by official media, \u201cI wasn\u2019t afraid for myself, I was afraid that the Supreme Leader might be harmed, and that we would start disputing among ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ali Khamenei, 86, has held his position since 1989, succeeding Ayatollah Khomeini. He has the final say on all strategic matters of the Islamic Republic. American and Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to assassinate him.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2014wanted by the International Criminal Court\u2014told AC News during the war that killing the Supreme Leader \u201cwould not escalate the conflict, but end it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similarly, former U.S. President Donald Trump called killing Khamenei \u201can easy target,\u201d but said Washington \u201cwould not do it, at least for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khamenei did not make any public appearances during the war, delivering speeches in recorded messages with no one appearing beside him.<\/p>\n
Since the ceasefire between Iran and Israel took effect on June 24, the Supreme Leader has significantly reduced his public appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iranian Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib has warned of American and Israeli attempts to target Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or to stir unrest within Iran, according to local media reports. Khatib, as reported by the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) on Saturday evening, said that the Supreme Leader is the “pillar,” and “for this reason, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57656"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57658,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57656\/revisions\/57658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sudanevents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}