Is Iran Trying to Kill Trump Again?

What does the fatwa say?

On Sunday, multiple media organizations in Iran reported a new fatwa from Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, one of the top Shia religious authorities in Iran, against anyone who threatens the supreme leader. He issued the ruling in response to a question requesting religious guidance which references recent threats made by Trump and Israeli leaders against Supreme Leader Khamenei, but his fatwa does not mention Trump at all, and is instead broadly directly at everyone everywhere.

The fatwa, translated, says that any person or government who threatens the supreme leader is considered a mohareb — which means an enemy combatant of God:

Any individual or regime that, God forbid, seeks to harm the Islamic nation and its sovereignty by threatening or violating the authority of the Supreme Leader and religious leadership is considered a mohareb. Any form of cooperation with or support for such entities by Muslims or Islamic governments is strictly prohibited (haram). It is the duty of all Muslims around the world to make these enemies regret their words and actions.

The edict also says that anyone who “endures harm or loss in this cause” will be rewarded by God.

Since being deemed a mohareb is punishable by death in Iran’s theocracy, some have interpreted this as a death sentence targeting Trump. Though surely the fatwa could be broadly interpreted as a call to individually target someone like Trump in any number of ways, it is far from a direct threat.

Also, a fatwa is definitely not a “death decree” as at least one publication has claimed.

So the fatwa doesn’t call for Trump’s assassination?

No, neither directly nor specifically.

The fatwa is likely far more dangerous for Iranians than Trump

There are numerous credible reports that the Iranian regime is targeting its own citizens and migrants in an effort to reestablish control following the Israeli attacks. The regime says it is hunting down people who aided Israel and the U.S., but that’s also the perfect cover for a repressive crackdown targeting dissidents and opposition figures. Amnesty International says more than 1,000 people have been arrested in the past few weeks. And there are widespread fears the regime will step up the pace of executions of alleged spies and political prisoners, as well.

The new fatwa might provide pretense for the theocracy to issue death sentences against even more political prisoners than it already does, and the Islamic Republic has used mass executions to repress dissent and opposition before.

Did Trump threaten to kill Khamenei?

Yes, more or less. On June 17, days before he ordered the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump began suggesting he could kill the supreme leader, but was choosing not do (while waiting for Iran to cave to his demands). Then on Friday, Trump said he hadn’t just chosen not to strike Khamenei, but that he had saved his life:

I knew EXACTLY where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces, by far the Greatest and Most Powerful in the World, terminate his life. I SAVED HIM FROM A VERY UGLY AND IGNOMINIOUS DEATH, and he does not have to say, “THANK YOU, PRESIDENT TRUMP!”

Generally, telling someone you are in conflict with how easy it would be to kill them is considered a threat.

Is this like the fatwa against Salman Rushdie?

The new fatwa is not the same as the infamous 1989 fatwa issued by Iran’s former Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, against writer Salman Rushdie over his novel The Satanic Verses. That fatwa specifically targeted Rushdie and ordered his death, as well as the death of anyone involved in the publishing of his book. “I call on all valiant Muslims wherever they may be in the world to kill them without delay,” Khomeini said.

Four people involved in the publishing of The Satanic Verses were subsequently targeted or attacked, including Japanese translator Hitoshi Igarashi, who was stabbed and killed in 1991. In 2022, a 24-year-old man stabbed Rushdie during a murder attempt at an event at the Chautauqua Institution. Rushdie was left blind in one eye as a result. Though the assailant’s social media activity indicated sympathy for Iran’s regime and Shia extremism, he never acknowledged whether or not he was specifically inspired by the fatwa.

This new fatwa does not mention Trump, let alone order his or anyone’s death. And it wasn’t issued by the supreme leader of Iran.

Didn’t Iran try to kill Trump before?

Back in November, the Justice Department announced that it had thwarted an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump before the presidential election, and filed murder-for-hire charges against Farhad Shakeri, an Afghan man living in Iran who the DoJ alleges had been asked to facilitate the plan by an official in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. That plot, and other previous plots and threats by Iran against Trump, former national security adviser John Bolton, and former defense secretary Mark Esper were all part of an effort to avenge the Trump-ordered assassination of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike in 2020. From what the Justice Department has said, it does not appear as though any of those plots got anywhere near the point of fruition.

In February, Trump said he had told his advisers to obliterate Iran if the regime succeeded in killing him. “I’ve left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated, there won’t be anything left,” he said.

Iranian officials also financed a foiled murder plot targeting Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad at her Brooklyn home in 2022. Three Russian mobsters were convicted for their roles in the plot.