Supreme leader says Iran dealt enemies ‘dizzying blow’

TEHRAN: Iran’s Supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei said Friday (Mar 20) the country had dealt its enemies a “dizzying blow” in the war with the United States and Israel, as fresh blasts hit Tehran on the first day of the Persian New Year festival.

Israel accused Tehran of an “attack on the holy sites” of Jerusalem, after a blast blew a crater in the Old City a few hundred metres from the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

Khamenei has not appeared in public since being named to succeed his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in Israeli airstrikes at the start of the war that has engulfed the region, and has only issued written statements.

Iranians have “dealt him (the enemy) a dizzying blow so that he now starts uttering contradictory words and nonsense,” Khamenei said in a written message for Nowruz, the Persian New Year.

“At the moment, due to the particular unity that has been created between you our compatriots – despite all the differences in religious, intellectual, cultural and political origins – the enemy has been defeated,” Khamenei said in the message.

The statement of defiance came as Iranians marked a muted Nowruz under the shadow of a war now approaching its fourth week.

AFP journalists heard several blasts in Tehran on Friday, from the eastern and northern parts of the city.

In the Iranian capital’s markets, shoppers were out in force buying new clothes and gifts, although sidewalks were less packed than usual for this time of year, with many people having fled north, AFP correspondents said.