Biography ali khamenei threat

Ayatollah Khamenei led the funeral prayers for Qasem Soleimani in January When the US killed the powerful Iranian general Qasem Soleimani - a close ally and personal friend - in a drone strike in Iraq in January , Ayatollah Khamenei promised "severe revenge". He called Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile attacks on two Iraqi bases hosting US forces a "slap on the face" for America.

But he stressed that "military action like this is not sufficient". The supreme leader has also repeatedly called for the elimination of the State of Israel. In , he described the country as a "cancerous tumour" that had to be removed from the region. He has also publicly questioned whether the Holocaust occurred. In , his Twitter feed quoted him as saying: "The Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain and if it has happened, it's uncertain how it has happened.

The cover-up over the downing of a Ukrainian jetliner caused widespread anger. In , Ayatollah Khamenei and Iran's establishment have faced two major crises. The first began when the IRGC mistakenly shot down a Ukraine International Airlines passenger plane near Tehran on 8 January, killing all people on board, many of them Iranian nationals. A cover-up caused widespread anger, with hardline newspapers demanding resignations, and there was a fresh wave of anti-government protests.

Security forces were accused of using live ammunition to disperse them. In a rare sermon at Friday prayers, Ayatollah Khamenei said his "heart burned" for the victims of the plane downing. But he also defended the military and accused Iran's enemies of seeking to capitalise on the tragedy. The ayatollah initially said the coronavirus threat was being exaggerated by Iran's enemies.

In February, Iran was struck by an outbreak of the new coronavirus disease. Despite Mr Khamenei's overarching power in Iran, he faces issues domestically as well as being one of the most consequential figures in the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. The death of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran's president, in a helicopter crash in May posed a major issue for the supreme leader.

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News. The Republic was founded as an alternative to a monarchy after the Revolution, with leaders portraying their system as superior to both Western democracies and military dictatorships and monarchies across the Middle East. However, many Iranians already view the state as a corrupt and dictatorial regime, which would be further highlighted by Khamenei's possible choice of successor.

This isn't the only reason some Iranians are unhappy with his leadership. Western sanctions linked to the country's nuclear programme have devastated its economy. The events of June had a formative effect on Khamenehi, as well as on many other students of Khomeini. Following the arrest of Khomeini for speaking out against the domestic and foreign policies of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, seminarians and clerics in Isfahan, Qom, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Tehran organized protests that spread to the bazaars and were suppressed violently by the police.

According to Shaul Bakhash, the demonstrations continued for three days and resulted in over deaths p. During these incidents, subsequently memorialized as the Fifteenth of Khordad 5 June uprising against the tyranny of the shah's regime, Khamenehi served as a liaison between the supporters of Khomeini in Qom and the clerical establishment in Mashhad, where Milani had emerged the leading ayatollah in the country.

The former's activities led to his arrest twice in However, rather than taming his political ardor, Khamenehi's prison experiences radicalized him further. For example, he returned to Mashhad, where he served as a representative of Khomeini, and was arrested on five separate occasions between and ; following his arrest in , he was sentenced to internal exile in the town of Iranshahr, located in a remote part of Baluchistan in southeastern Iran.

Khamenehi kept in contact both with his mentor, Khomeini, and fellow former students who shared an aversion to the Pahlavi monarchy. In , he joined with like-minded clerics to form the Society of Combatant Clergy Jame'eh-e rohaniyat-e mobarez, JRM , a party that had as one of its aims the organizing of a nationwide struggle against the shah.

He was active throughout , except for a brief period when he was under arrest, in mobilizing opposition demonstrations, marches, and strikes in Mashhad. He went to Tehran to greet Khomeini when the latter returned on 1 February , after more than fourteen years in exile. Khamenehi did not return to Mashhad, but remained in Tehran, where he became involved in national politics.

Khomeini appointed him to be member of the secretive Revolutionary Council, the body that competed with and often overruled the provisional government, also appointed by Khomeini. In July , after the secular ministers of the provisional government had resigned, Prime Minister Mehdi Barzagan, in an effort to effect better coordination with the Revolutionary Council and to minimize political rivalry, invited Khamenehi and other members of the Revolutionary Council to join his cabinet; Khamenehi became deputy minister of defense, as well as Khomeini's representative to the Revolutionary Guards , a new military group formed to counter potential military threats on the part of officers who still might be loyal to the ancient regime.

Also, along with other JRM activists, he formed the Islamic Republic Party IRP and subsequently became one of its representatives in the Assembly of Experts, the body that convened in August with a mandate to draft a constitution for the Islamic Republic. In March , he was elected, as an IRP candidate, to the first Majles parliament under the new constitution; he served as a Majles deputy for eighteen months.

In late June , he was severely wounded when a close-by tape recorder with a concealed bomb inside exploded as he was delivering a sermon; as a result, he lost permanent use of his right arm and hand. Three months later in early October , following the assassination of President Mohammad Ali Rajai, Khamenehi was elected as Iran's first cleric president, a position he held for more than seven years.

In June , he was selected as faqih to succeed Khomeini. Education: Iran: religious studies in theological colleges of Mashhad and Qom. Iraq: religious classes in in Shi'ite seminaries of al-Najaf, Iraq. As the vali-ye faqih entrusted with supervising the entire system of government in the Islamic Republic, Khamenehi ideally is supposed to take a neutral stance with respect to the issues that constitute the bases of competition among Iran's multiple political factions.

However, more of his decisions on contentious matters have been partial to the positions of the conservative JRM and its allies than to those of the progressive Association of Combatant Clergy Majma'-ye rohaniyun-e mobarez, MRM and its allies. Although Khamenehi resigned his own membership in the JRM when he became leader, for ten years prior to that his own ideological views, especially when he was president October to June , had been close to the cultural, economic, political, religious, and social stances of the conservative wing of the JRM.

For instance, there was an ongoing rivalry between him and his prime minister , Mir-Husayn Musavi, primarily over economic policy issues. Whereas Khamenehi tended to be favorably inclined toward the interests of the bazaar merchants , a socioeconomic group that opposed most government intervention in the economy, Musavi viewed state economic intervention as a positive means to redistribute wealth and to help create a more equalitarian society.

In fact, after Khamenehi was reelected to his second term as president in , he tried to get Musavi dismissed, arguing that it should be the president's prerogative to choose the prime minister. The stalemate over sending a nomination to the Majles continued for nearly a month and was resolved only when Khomeini intervened by effectively endorsing Musavi to continue as prime minister.

The ideological rivalry between Khamenehi and Musavi also became a rivalry between their respective offices, the presidency and the prime ministry. This situation was one of concern when the constitution was amended in , and it prompted the elimination of the office of prime minister and the combining of head of state and head of government functions in the office of president.

Once Khamenehi became the paramount faqih , he seems to have tried to model his approach to factional politics on that of Khomeini: to remain aloof as much as possible and to intervene only when necessary to restore balance. However, from the beginning of his tenure as faqih , he was hampered by the fact that he possessed neither the charisma nor religious authority of Khomeini.

Biography ali khamenei threat

In a ceremony marking the sixth anniversary of the death of Khomeini, he accused Washington of interfering in the affairs of Iran, saying; "It is very clear that the government of Iran is against U. With Khamenei's religious ruling, both Coke and Pepsi were banned in Iran. He launched a drive to make the universities more Islamic, and to increase censorship of newspapers, books, and films.

While many in the public sector had little enthusiasm for continuing the revolutionary fervor, Khamenei with an extremist viewpoint attempted to keep Iran from moderating its stance. During the elections, Khamenei's choice for president, Ali Akbar Nateq-Noori, was defeated by Mohammed Khatami in a referendum by the general public for more freedom and liberty.

Within the growing literature on Iran's revolution and its regional and world impact, several well written and widely circulated English studies stand out: Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution ; R. English translations of key Iranian speeches can be found in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, available at most U.

Government depository libraries. Khamenei's fundamentalism and politics is discussed by David Hirst in the The Guardian February 3, Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 8, Retrieved January 08, from Encyclopedia. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list.

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