A senior Iranian cleric on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. interests, saying that waging jihad against the “infidel enemy” was a religious obligation “for anyone capable of carrying it out.”
“It is incumbent upon the free people of the region not to remain silent in the face of the aggression of the Zionist-American enemy,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a top member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr News outlet.
“America is a hostile infidel enemy, and jihad against it with all one’s strength is obligatory for every free and faithful believer who adheres to the rulings of Islam,” said Araki, who was reportedly among the candidates to replace Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei following his Feb. 28 death in the opening strike of “Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion,” the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against the Tehran regime.
Referencing U.S.-led attempts to demilitarize Iran’s regional terrorist proxies, the regime cleric claimed that “American arrogance has launched a conspiracy to disarm the courageous mujahideen [jihadists] in Iraq and Lebanon ... to pave the way for the complete domination of colonialism over all these lands.”
“Disarming resistance forces is, without doubt, an act of weakening the resistance and assisting hostile unbelievers and arrogant powers, particularly the Zionist-American alliance,” he concluded.
The Iranian regime rejected a Qatari proposal to hold direct talks with the United States to bridge outstanding differences, Axios reported on Thursday, citing regional and U.S. sources.
Following renewed U.S. strikes against Iranian regime targets, Qatari mediators traveled to Tehran on Wednesday for meetings with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other senior officials to revive talks aimed at ending the war, according to the report.
Iranian and U.S. officials held separate talks with Qatari interlocutors in Doha over the past two days, the regional source said.
Two U.S. officials told Axios that Washington hoped its retaliatory airstrikes would persuade Tehran to respond to President Donald Trump’s proposals, adding that his threats were part of the same effort.
“The deal is still on the table, but the president is ready to make the Iranians pay a price if they continue to delay and drag their feet,” one official said.
