Mohammad-Javad Larijani, a former senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has made a veiled threat suggesting U.S. President Donald Trump could be targeted in a drone attack while relaxing at his Florida estate.
"Trump has done something so that he can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago. When he is there lying on his stomach with his belly to the sun, a small drone could strike him on the navel. It's very easy," Larijani was quoted as saying in a recent Iranian TV interview by Iran International. The statement soon started trending on all social media platforms.
His comment follows Trump negotiating a ceasefire between Iran and Israel after a 12-day escalation of violence that started with Israel's Operation Rising Lion on June 13. That operation attacked multiple critical Iranian nuclear and military targets.
Iran replied with a series of missile attacks on Israeli cities and then on U.S. military installations within Qatar and Iraq. The attacks were carried out in response to U.S. airstrikes against Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
When queried on Larijani's statement in an interview with Fox News, Trump answered with typical wit. "A long time. I don't know, maybe I was maybe seven or eight. I'm not very much into it," he remarked when asked when he last sunbathed. He continued, "I guess that's a threat. I'm sure it's not a threat, really, but maybe it is."
In the meantime, a prominent Shia religious leader in Iran, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, has issued a fatwa against both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "enemies of God.
"Any individual or government endangering the Leader or Marja (God forbid) is an enemy of God," the decree stated. It threatened further that "any help or collaboration with that enemy by Muslims or Islamic governments is forbidden or haram," and it appealed to the world Muslim nation to have such enemies regret what they've done.
The Islamic pronouncement was said to come after Trump and Israeli authorities were seen issuing threats against Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei. On his social media site recently, Trump boasted that he had spared Khamenei an "ugly and ignominious death," while accusing him of lying about winning against Israel.
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