Chaos erupted in Washington Square Park in Manhattan as a vigil mourning the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei descended into violence Friday, with video capturing a man being pummeled to the ground while attempting to tear down a poster of the late Iranian leader.
Video showed a man attempting to pull down a poster of the dictator — killed last week in an Israeli airstrike — when a man wearing a SpongeBob sweatshirt punched him in the face, sending him to the ground.
Others began fighting, prompting New York City Police Department (NYPD) intervention.
As the brawl unfolded, the crowd could be heard shouting profanity.
Multiple people were captured on video being detained by police.
The vigil featured a makeshift memorial table covered with Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, candles and photos of Khamenei, with an observer describing the scene as the "People’s Republic of New York."
Meanwhile, nearby counter-protesters waved Iranian, American and Israeli flags while chanting "U.S.A."
In a flyer announcing the event, organizers called Khamenei's death an "assassination by U.S. government forces."
Saturday's downtown Tehran strike that killed Khamenei and other regime leaders was carried out by the Israeli military.
U.S. officials have denied any involvement.
"Throughout his life, Khamenei defended the dignity of the Iranian people and stood firmly against zionism [sic] and the criminal American regime," organizers wrote on the flyer. "Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 overthrew the U.S.-backed puppet government, the Iranian people have resisted Western domination and the exploitation of their land, labor, and resources.
"In that time, Iran severed all ties with the zionist [sic] regime and was the first country to host a Palestinian embassy on its soil, all while materially supporting Palestinian resistance and national liberation movements across the world."
Among Khamenei's supporters were a group of counter-protesters who slammed the vigil while holding American flags and pre-1979 Islamic Revolution Iranian Lion and Sun flags.
"We're here to show everyone that Iranians don't like the regime," a man at the vigil told Fox News contributor Nicole Parker on "Hannity."
"My family is in Iran, but all of them are fighting against the regime," another woman told Parker. "They're happy about this, they want this war — this war is not about [the] Iranian people, this war is against the Islamic Republic."
U.S. Mosques Mourn ‘Our Leader’ Khamenei, Michigan Imam Might Have Dem Party Ties
[PJMedia] Mosques in Manassas, Va., and Dearborn, Mich., held memorials honoring the "martyr" — i.e., eliminated terrorist leader of Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
Ayatollah Khamenei — and one of the mosques reportedly has multiple ties to prominent Democrat politicians.
The Dearborn imam blamed Israel for the Trump administration’s decision to launch Operation Epic Fury, which Trump himself emphatically denied — saying the Iranian terrorist regime simply threatened and attacked Americans one too many times.
As a reminder, Ayatollah Khamenei spent almost four decades leading a regime that was the worst state sponsor of terrorism in the world. In recent years, he increased religious persecution, helped orchestrate the worst day of massacre of Jews since the Holocaust (Oct. 7), and stepped up politically motivated executions. This year, Khamenei oversaw a bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters within his nation that left over 30,000 Persians dead. This is the man whom some American Moslems wanted to honor and mourn.
Fox News explained:
Located in Manassas, Virginia, and Dearborn Heights, Michigan, the mosques both publicly advertised events eulogizing the slain leader. In a flyer for the "Potluck Iftar" honoring Khamenei, which is a ceremony where Muslims break their Ramadan fast, the Manassass Mosque, which has faced questions over alleged ties to Iran, referred to Khamenei as "our leader." Meanwhile, at the Islamic House of Wisdom (IHW) in Dearborn Heights, which has also faced scrutiny over its ties to Iran, the center's Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi called the U.S. military offensive "evil" and argued that it was based on false-pretenses.
The Dearborn imam ranted irrationally and inaccurately, “You promised that America First, and now we ended up to have [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu first.”
He furiously, mendaciously, and ominously raved, “Now we realize that all their talk about nuclear [unintelligible] was a joke, it didn't even exist. From the beginning talking about regime change, we want to change, because we don't like it. So, starting an illegal – illegal war – and then go and bomb the house of the leader of the country. Where is justification for this? Where is their reason for this, at all?”
The justification would be the half a century of Iranian regime Jihad against America. Apparently this imam wants us to ignore the fact that Khamenei regularly affirmed “death to America” was his policy. Or perhaps the imam simply supported that policy and so sees no issue with it. The imam certainly claimed that highly dubious reports of the U.S.-Israeli strike deliberately wrecking a Tehran school were true.
From Fox again:
Both the Manassas Mosque and the IWH were listed in a July 2023 letter that Congressional Republicans sent to former Attorney General Merrick Garland and former Director of National Intelligence during the Biden administration, Avril Haines. The letter called out a network of U.S.-based mosques throughout the country that have received financial funding from the Alavi Foundation, which lawmakers said "is a large foundation that has been in litigation for years because of allegations it operates on behalf of the Iranian regime, a state sponsor of terrorism," or have other close ties to the Iranian regime.
The GOP letter accused, “The Imam of IHW, Mohammad Ali Elahi, served as the head of ‘political ideology’ for the Iranian Navy in the 1980s, according to a publicly available Central Intelligence Agency report. He personally claims to be ‘friends’ with three former Iranian Presidents, and since moving to the US, he has had seemingly non-stop contact with senior regime officials.” But he also seemingly has ties to Democrats like John Kerry and Kamala Harris.