A conservative Iranian newspaper has published a list naming United States President Donald Trumpand several European leaders as potential revenge targets following the killing of Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Tribune Online reports that Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli strikes on February 28, the opening day of the Middle East war. His son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, has since vowed to retaliate.
“Vengeance is the will of our nation and must inevitably be carried out,” Mojtaba said on Saturday in his first message since his father’s funeral this week.
“These criminals, whose names appear on a list, will take to their graves the wish of a peaceful death in their beds.”
The list was published in an online infographic by the Hamshahri newspaper, a publication owned by authorities in the Iranian capital, late on Saturday. It featured photographs of 13 foreign leaders alongside Mojtaba’s statement.
Although Mojtaba said Iran had drawn up a list of people to be targeted, he did not identify anyone by name, and there was no indication that the newspaper’s publication had official approval.
Among those featured in the infographic are Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The infographic was not included in the newspaper’s Sunday print edition.
Others named on the list include US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Throughout the conflict, Iran accused several European countries of supporting attacks on its territory by failing to condemn them and by permitting US military aircraft to use their airspace.
Mojtaba Khamenei has remained out of public view since before the war and was reportedly injured in the strikes that killed his father.
- AFP