Ayatollah Ali Khamenei takes what’s going on VERY serious.
Crowds chant slogans under portraits of Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, one of the leaders of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, who were killed in a U.S. drone strike. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader / AFP – Getty Images
TEHRAN — The recent missile attack on U.S. troops in Iraq dealt a “blow to America’s image,” Iran’s supreme leader said Friday as the government grappled with the fallout of the killing of a top general by the United States and scrambled to contain anger at the subsequent accidental downing of a passenger plane.
“They stealthily and cowardly assassinated Gen. [Qassem] Soleimani,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the huge crowd, according to a translation by state-owned Press TV.
Earlier, Iranians flooded the streets outside Tehran’s Mosalla Mosque to hear Khamenei, 80, address Friday prayers for the first time since 2012. Wrapped up against the cold, some carried pictures of the supreme leader while others held aloft placards telling the U.S. to “Pack up and get lost.” The crowds quickly filled the inner hall of the mosque with many spilling out onto the streets.
Khamenei’s decision to speak indicates how seriously authorities are taking recent events, particularly the downing of the Ukrainian plane that killed 176 people aboard, including 82 Iranians.