A senior Iranian cleric on Wednesday called on Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. interests, saying that waging jihad against the “infidel enemy” was a religious obligation “for anyone capable of carrying it out.”
“It is incumbent upon the free people of the region not to remain silent in the face of the aggression of the Zionist-American enemy,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a top member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr News outlet.

“America is a hostile infidel enemy, and jihad against it with all one’s strength is obligatory for every free and faithful believer who adheres to the rulings of Islam,” said Araki, who was reportedly among the candidates to replace Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei following his Feb. 28 death in the opening strike of “Operation Epic Fury/Roaring Lion,” the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against the Tehran regime.

Referencing U.S.-led attempts to demilitarize Iran’s regional terrorist proxies, the regime cleric claimed that “American arrogance has launched a conspiracy to disarm the courageous mujahideen [jihadists] in Iraq and Lebanon ... to pave the way for the complete domination of colonialism over all these lands.”