Iran says it could 'simply' assassinate Trump 'as he sunbathes at Mar-a-Lago'
Iran could assassinate Donald Trump while he sunbathes at his Mar-a-Lago resort, a top cleric has warned.
An advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Javad Larijani, said Trump could be wiped out with a drone strike at his sprawling resort in Florida. Larijani told state TV: "Trump has done something so that he can no longer sunbathe in Mar-a-Lago. As he lies there with his stomach to the sun, a small drone might hit him in the navel. It's very simple." Laughing off the threat, Trump said: "I guess it's a threat. I'm not sure it's a threat, actually, but perhaps it is."
It comes after a platform was set up online raising funds "to punish" figures who have threated Iran's Supreme Leader. A statement on the site, which is titled "Blood Pact", reads: "We pledge to award the bounty to anyone who can bring the enemies of God and those who threaten the life of Ali Khamenei to justice."
A fatwa, which is an Islamic religious decree, has already called for the death of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a top Iranian cleric branded them both "enemies of God" for waging war on Iran. It accuses the men of waging "war against [Allah]" and stressed they "must be made to regret their words and actions".
"Those who threaten the leadership and integrity of the Islamic Ummah are to be considered [mohareb]," it added. Iran's penal code dictates that mohareb - an individual who has waged war on god - should be executed, crucified, or have their right hand and left foot amputated. Exile is another option for mohareb.
The cleric also outlawed Muslims the right to support or cooperate with the two leaders and offered would-be killers of the world leaders a bounty from Allah should they succeed. It reads: "It is necessary for all Muslims around the world to make these enemies regret their words and mistakes.
"[A] Muslim who abides by his Muslim duty and suffers hardship or loss in their campaign, they will be rewarded as a fighter in the way of God, God willing."
But it wouldn't be the first time Trump has been the target of an assassination plot from Iran. In November last year, it emerged that the FBI had thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate then president-elect Trump.
The US Justice Department announced the murder-for-hire plan to kill the President-elect Trump, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official to carry out the killing. Investigators learned of the plot while interviewing Farhad Shakeri, a 51-year-old Afghan national identified by officials as an Iranian government asset who was deported from the US after being imprisoned on robbery charges.
He told investigators that a contact in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him in September to put together a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
Two other men who the authorities say were recruited to participate in other assassinations, including a prominent Iranian American journalist, were also arrested today. The two men, named as Carlisle Rivera and Jonathon Loadholt, reside in New York, while Shakeri remains on the run in Iran.
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