Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Tuesday threatened the United States and Israel, calling on Muslims worldwide to chant for the destruction of the two nations during the upcoming Hajj pilgrimage.
“In various parts of Iran and the world, and continuing well beyond these blessed days, ‘Death to America” and ‘Death to Israel’ shall become the common chants of the Islamic ummah [nation],” Khamenei said in a written statement issued on the occasion of the Hajj and published in English by the semi-official ISNA news agency.
The ayatollah called on the faithful to pray for “the liberation of Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the resolution of the great hardships facing Muslims and the attainment of final victory against global arrogance.”
The “shaken Zionist regime and the cancerous tumor of Israel” are “approaching the final stages of their wretched existence,” he warned.
According to Khamenei, Tehran’s terrorist proxies across the region in recent months saw “the fulfillment of Allah’s true promise of victory” over what the Iranian leader described as “the Great Satan, America, and its trained beast, the Zionist regime.”
“The mujahideen [jihadists] of the resistance front, especially those in beloved Lebanon, secured decisive victories against the two terrorist, American-Zionist armies which were armed to the teeth,” he wrote.
“The hands of time will not turn back, and the nations and lands of the region will no longer serve as shields for U.S. bases,” he vowed. “The United States not only will no longer have a safe haven for its mischief and for establishing military bases in the region but day by day, it is growing more distant from its former status.”
Khamenei said cries of “Allahu Akbar” had united the Islamic Republic’s allies “from Iran to Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Syria, from Africa and Yemen to Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the free nations of the world.”
The supreme leader praised them for “defending the very essence of the ummah against the usurping Zionist aggressors, crushing the agenda of Daesh [ISIS], unleashing the Al-Aqsa Flood [Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre] and leaving the teetering Zionist regime to gasp its final breath.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters earlier on Tuesday that ongoing talks to end the war with Iran could still “take a few days,” stressing that Washington would give diplomacy every chance to succeed before considering taking action against the regime in “another way.”
“There were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress,” he told reporters on his plane during an official visit to India.
“I think it’s a lot of talking back and forth going on about specific language in the initial document, so it’ll take a few days,” added Rubio. “The president’s expressed his desire to make it. He’s either going to make a good deal or no deal.”
