(Reuters) – The website of Iran’s Supreme Leader on Friday carried the image of a golfer resembling former President Donald Trump apparently being targeted by a drone alongside a threat of revenge over last year’s killing of a top Iranian general in a U.S. drone attack.
The image first appeared on a Persian-language Twitter feed that carried a link to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s website. Twitter took down that feed on Friday, saying it was fake.
Underneath the website picture were remarks by Khamenei in December ahead of the first anniversary this month of the killing of military commander General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, which was ordered by Trump.
“Both the murderers and those who ordered it should know that revenge may come at any time,” said the comments on top of the image, which showed the shadow of a drone looming over the lone golfer. Trump, who regularly plays golf, was not named.
U.S.-Iran tensions grew rapidly after 2018, when Trump exited a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers and reimposed crippling sanctions.
Tehran retaliated for Soleimani’s killing with missile strikes against U.S. targets in Iraq but the two sides backed away from further confrontation.
High tension and risk of war appeared to subside with the end of Trump’s term. His successor President Joe Biden, sworn in on Wednesday, has said Washington seeks to lengthen and strengthen the nuclear constraints on Iran through diplomacy.
Emily Horne, a spokeswoman for the Biden White House National Security Council, said “these kinds of threats from Iran are unacceptable.”
“We strongly condemn this provocative action. We will continue to work with our friends and partners to counter Iran’s malign influence,” she said in response to a request for comment.
The top Republican on the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, earlier urged the Biden administration “to respond quickly and forcefully to this provocative threat against a former president” and called on Twitter to immediately and permanently suspend Khamenei’s account.
An official close to Khamenei’s inner circle said: “The aim (of the tweet) was to remind the gambler (Trump) that leaving office does not mean he will be safe and the assassination of our martyr Soleimani will be forgotten.”
“And now, American troops cannot protect him,” the official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters without elaborating.
