Khamenei: Executed Hajaji is “brilliant example of Islamic evolution”

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Iran’s Supreme Leader has praised a Revolutionary Guards soldier beheaded by the Islamic State in eastern Syria almost two weeks ago.

In a Twitter message on Sunday, Ayatollah Khamenei’s office hailed Hajaji as an example to “young individuals” in a world filled with “deceptive audio and video outlets”:

Hajaji was seized by ISIS near the Iraqi border on August 9. He was executed two days later.

General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Guards’ elite Quds Force, promised:

Iran’s brave sons will take revenge for this barbaric act…[and] uproot the filthy tree of Wahhabism and terror from the Islamic world. These crimes only increase our determination to cleanse Islamic lands of their filthy presence.

Iran’s military has propped up the Assad regime since 2012, both through direct intervention and through command of foreign militia, but the Supreme Leader only began public acknowledgement of losses — always described as “martyrs” and often said to be in defense of the Sayyeda Zeinab shrine in southern Damascus — in early 2016.

Trial Begins for Sweden-Based Academic Facing Death Penalty

The trial of Stockholm-based academic Ahmadreza Djalali, detained since last April on charges which could carry the death penalty, is set to begin in Tehran.

Djalali was seized during a visit for a conference and accused of espionage and “enmity with God”.

The academic is a specialist in disaster medicine at the prestigious Karolinska Institute. He previously worked at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Italy.

“We have asked to attend [the trial], but received a refusal,” said Anne Torngren from Sweden’s Foreign Ministry. The Swedish Embassy has applied for permission to visit Djalali.