‘Clown’ Trump will stab Iran in back: ayatollah

DONALD Trump is a “clown” who will “push a poisonous dagger” into Iran’s back, the country’s supreme leader has warned.

Leading Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time since 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei said the outpouring of grief over the assassination of Qassem Soleimani showed the Iranian public supported the government.

He added that his country’s retaliatory attack on US troops was a “blow to America’s image” as a superpower.

The US killed Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s second most powerful man, and nine others in a drone strike in Baghdad earlier this month.

In response, Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting US troops in Iraq, without causing serious injuries.

As Iran’s Revolutionary Guard braced for an American counter-attack that never came, it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian jet shortly after it took off from Tehran’s international airport, killing all 176 passengers, most of whom were Iranian.

Authorities concealed their role in the tragedy for three days, initially blaming the crash on a technical problem.

Their admission of responsibility triggered days of street protests which security forces dispersed with live ammunition and tear gas.

Khamenei has held the country’s top office since 1989 and has the final say on all major decisions.

The 80-year-old leader openly wept at the funeral of Soleimani and vowed “harsh retaliation” against the US.

Tensions between Iran and America have steadily escalated since Donald Trump withdrew the US from a nuclear deal signed in 2015.

The White House has since imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, including on its vital oil and gas industries, pushing the country into an economic crisis that has ignited several waves of sporadic protests.

Khamenei last delivered a Friday sermon in February 2012, when he called Israel a “cancerous tumour” and vowed to back anyone confronting the country.