TEHRAN: Following the drubbing of US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party in the midterm elections, Iranians set fire to a giant poster featuring the American leader and his allies at a rally in Tehran.
In the capital’s central Enghelab square, crowds gathered to observe the burning of the poster which also featured his Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The war was started by Trump and Netanyahu, who launched a massive wave of surprise attacks against Iran which killed supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and others on Feb 28 and sparked the wider Middle East war.
The cheering audience waved red flags to demand revenge for Khamenei’s death.
“We will kill Trump,” read the slogan on some of the flags waved by the crowd as a song named “We Must Rise” mourning Khamenei blared from nearby speakers.
Earlier, thousands of Iranians had mocked Trump at an annual rally commemorating the US embassy takeover and hostage crisis that followed the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Wednesday’s public displays took place following the Republicans’ crushing losses in the midterm elections in which the Democrats seized control of Congress.
Trump admitted that the war he launched with Israel against Iran in February was a key factor in the electoral defeat.
Iranian officials have since taunted the US president, with security chief Mohsen Rezaei saying it marked a “political defeat” after Tehran “handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield and in the Hormuz” strait.
