Iranian state newspaper welcomes attack on Salman Rushdie

Iran's Kayhan newspaper, funded by the ayatollah regime's state, published an opinion column on Saturday expressing "happiness" over Friday's attack on Indian writer Salman Rushdie. 

The op-ed would celebrate the attack and thank the perpetrator for carrying out the attack on Rushdie. For its part, the Iranian state has so far made no official comment on the attack. 

Rushdie was attacked on Friday in New York as he was about to give a lecture at a cultural centre. The attacker stabbed him in the neck and several other areas of his body. Rushdie survived, but is in critical condition in a US hospital on a respiratory support unit. 

According to a statement from his agent, Rushdie is likely to lose an eye, has liver damage and nerve damage in one of his arms. According to the New York State Police, the assailant has been arrested. He is a 24-year-old Muslim man, a resident of the adjoining state of New Jersey. The motive for the attack has not yet been revealed, but everything points to a terrorist attack motivated by radical Islam's hatred of the Indian writer. 

Since 1989, Rushdie has had the sword of Damocles of the Iranian regime around his neck, when the former Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against the writer for the publication of his most successful novel, Satanic Verses.

Since then, Rushdie has lived under protection, especially from the British state. He has rarely appeared in public and his whereabouts are often unknown because of the threat against him.