Khamenei’s death met with ‘jubilation’ among Iranian-Canadians: Liberal MP
Global News
Iranian-Canadians are greeting news of Ayatollah Khamenei's death with jubilation, one MP says. Iran, meanwhile, is vowing revenge for U.S. and Israel's surprise bombing campaign.
Iranian-Canadian communities are greeting news of the death of Iran’s supreme leader with jubilation, according to Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi.
Ehsassi, whose Willowdale riding in Toronto has a significant Iranian-Canadian population, was in the crowd at a large protest against the Iranian regime in Richmond Hill on Saturday when news of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death was made public.
“The crowd was absolutely jubilant, so incredibly happy,” Ehsassi, whose family emigrated from Iran after the 1979 revolution, said in an interview with Global News on Sunday.
“The supreme leader was the architect of the apparatus of fear within Iran, and also obviously the individual responsible for making sure that his regime became the chief sponsor of international terrorism. So all of the bloodshed that this regime committed (against protesters) a month ago has really, really hardened attitudes and people are just desperately looking for a new chapter in Iran.”
The U.S. and Israel launched a surprise bombing campaign against Iran on Saturday, which Iranian authorities say killed more than 200 people in Tehran, including Khamenei and several high-ranking Iranian officials. The death toll includes at least 115 people who were killed when bombs fell on an girls’ school in southern Iran, according to the local governor who spoke to state television.
Iran vowed revenge Sunday and launched strikes at Israel and Gulf States, heightening concerns of a prolonged war that could consume the region. Three U.S. military members have died, 11 people were killed in Israel and scores more injured across the region.
But Ehsassi said that the Iranian-Canadian diaspora are not “too concerned” about the situation devolving into a regional war.
“I think members of the diaspora, generally, look at Iran and they just know that its military is just antiquated. To them, it seems this is all empty threats and the regime has very few tools at its disposal,” Ehsassi said.
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Iranian-Canadians are greeting news of Ayatollah Khamenei's death with jubilation, one MP says. Iran, meanwhile, is vowing revenge for U.S. and Israel's surprise bombing campaign.
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