THE GUARDIAN: President issues warning amid speculation Donald Trump plans to assassinate or remove supreme leader
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, warned on Sunday that any attack on the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be a declaration of war.
In an apparent response to speculation that Donald Trump is considering an attempt to assassinate or remove Khamenei, Pezeshkian said in a post on X: “An attack on the great leader of our country is tantamount to a full-scale war with the Iranian nation.”
The Iranian president also blamed the US for the protests that have rocked Iran over the last two weeks and led to thousands of deaths among demonstrators.
“If there are hardship and constraints in the lives of the dear people of Iran, one of the main causes is the longstanding hostility and inhumane sanctions imposed by the US government and its allies,” Pezeshkian said.
Trump, in an interview with Politico on Saturday, called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly 40-year reign, calling him “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people”. » | Lorenzo Tondo and Deepa Parent | Sunday, January 18, 2026
