Amid the ongoing conflict with Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has declared, “the battle begins.”
“In the name of the noble Haidar, the battle begins,” he wrote in a post published in Farsi on his Farsi-language X account on Wednesday.
Haidar is a name often used for Ali, whom Shia Muslims regard as the first Imam and the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad.
Khamenei also posted on his English-language X account: “We must give a strong response to the terrorist Zionist regime. We will show the Zionists no mercy.”