Following the murder of Shi’ite pilgrims, an attack claimed by Islamic State that is threatening to escalate tensions amid huge anti-government rallies, Iran’s supreme Leader promised on Thursday to take revenge against those posing a threat to the country’s security.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged Iranians to come together in a statement delivered on state television, in which he stated the attackers ‘would undoubtedly be punished.’
A day after the incident, which claimed the lives of 15, Khamenei declared, ‘We all have a duty to deal with the enemy and its disloyal or uninformed agents.’
Khamenei’s appeal for unity appeared to be aimed mostly at supporters of the regime rather than against demonstrators, whose movement has been going on for almost six weeks and is considered a danger to national security by authorities.
Since the death on September 16 of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman while in police detention, Mahsa Amini, Iran’s clerical leaders have been the target of widespread demonstrations.
The protests, which have turned into one of the biggest challenges to the clerical authority since the 1979 revolution and attracted many Iranians to the streets, have called for the death of Khamenei and the destruction of the Islamic Republic.
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