The group “Blood Covenant” reportedly launched the assassination campaign following fatwas issued by multiple Iranian clerics.
A crowdfunding effort, linked to a former employee of Iran’s state media, has raised $40 million as a bounty for the assassination of US PresidentDonald Trump, The New York Post reported last Saturday.
The group “Blood Covenant” reportedly launched the assassination campaign following fatwas issued by multiple Iranian clerics.
Following Trump’s orders to bomb three Iranian nuclear facilities, the clerics reportedly labeled Trump as an “enemy of Allah.”
“We pledge to award the prize to whoever can bring the militants and those who threaten the life of the Deputy of Imam Mahdi (may our souls be sacrificed for him) to justice for their actions,” the Blood Covenant wrote on its website.
The US-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) think tank reported that Blood Covenant runs “under the aegis of the Iranian regime.”
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump gestures with a bloodied face while he is assisted by US Secret Service personnel after he was shot in the right ear during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, US, July 13, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID)
“This is a call to jihad, inviting believers to donate their money and sacrifice their lives,” MEMRI said in an analysis of the fundraising effort. “The poster lends religious legitimacy to assassinating Trump.
“The fact that these calls to assassinate Trump are coming from above and being echoed in the street and through all strata of society, including in the Iranian media … reflects a broad religious and regime consensus strengthened by reiterated emphasis of the reward anyone carrying out the punishment against Trump can expect to receive — in addition to the $40.3 million, also Paradise and the status of a defender of Islam.”
Blood Covenant’s efforts were reportedly supported by ten Iranian state-appointed clerics, according to dissident media site Iran International.
Additionally, the London-based dissident media reported that Azeri, a state-appointed cleric in Iran’s West Azarbaijan Province, announced a reward of 100 billion tomans (approximately $1.14 million) for the murder of the US president.
“We will give 100 billion tomans to anyone who brings the head of Trump,” said Mansour Emami, the provincial director of the official Islamic Propagation Organization in West Azerbaijan.
Despite the clerics being state-appointed, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said during his interview with Tucker Carlson, “To the best of my knowledge, they have not issued decrees or fatwas against any individual or against Donald Trump. It has nothing to do with the Iranian government or the Supreme Leader of Iran.”
Attempts on US President Donald Trump’s life
A Pakistani national alleged to have ties with Iran wascharged in 2024 for planning the assassination of a number of US officials, including Trump. The alleged goal of Asif Merchant was to target those in the US who were “hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world,” the CNN report said, citing the court documents.
Additionally, the Justice Department reported in 2024 that one of three American citizens charged with the attempted assassination of Trump was also surveilling two Jewish American citizens and claimed an IRGC official offered him $500,000 for the murder of either the president or American Jewry.
Shir Perets contributed to this report.