Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is calling for jihad. This may be an expression of desperation. Women and children are being mobilised in the streets and are receiving weapons training, which is likewise not a sign of strength. But the fact that the regime is advancing jihad and turning this into a religious war naturally has significance. Whether it is Mojtaba himself who has issued the statements, or someone using his name, is uncertain.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei used a series of posts on X on Tuesday to portray Iran’s conflict with the United States and Israel in ideological and religious terms, referring to what one counterterrorism analyst described as “jihad – holy religious war”.
Khamenei’s defiant statements came after President Donald Trump called off a planned attack on Iran on 18 May, and as Washington signalled that it would not soften its position on Tehran’s nuclear programme.
“Among the most valuable achievements of the third sacred defence campaign [against the American and Zionist invasion] is Iran’s emergence as a major and influential power,” Mojtaba said in a post on X.
“Remove the euphemism, and what Khamenei is referring to here is jihad – holy religious war,” said Dr Omar Mohammed, a counterterrorism analyst at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, to Fox News Digital.
“‘Sacred defence’ is the Islamic Republic’s preferred term for jihad against an aggressor; it carries the full weight of religious obligation in Shiite jurisprudence,” he added.
“By framing the war against America and Israel in this way, Khamenei is not describing a geopolitical conflict. He is declaring a holy war and portraying it as a religious duty,” Mohammed added.
Mohammed also said that the message explicitly identifies “America and the Zionists” as the enemy.
“It is not vague wording. The Islamic Republic, under Mojtaba’s father, made hatred of America and hatred of Jews the two pillars of its ideology for more than 30 years,” he said.
In another post, Khamenei wrote: “By pursuing the correct and necessary policy for population growth, the great Iranian nation will be able to play an important role and experience strategic leaps in the future, and take major steps towards building the new Islamic-Iranian civilisation.”
“The fact that he is now speaking publicly as Supreme Leader – and that this substantive message is a call for jihad against America and the Jews – tells you what kind of leader he intends to be,” Mohammed added.
Mohammed also pointed out the irony that the Supreme Leader delivered his message on X – a platform the Iranian government has “blocked in Iran for almost two decades” – while ordinary Iranians are undergoing what he described as the country’s longest and most severe internet blackout.
“For more than four months now, costing the Iranian economy a quarter of a billion dollars a day,” Mohammed said before stating that the Supreme Leader “speaks to the world on a platform his own people are forbidden to read, in a country he has shut off from the outside world.”
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