Top Iranian cleric gunned down in broad daylight April 27, 2023Ayatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani. (Wikimedia Commons)Wikimedia CommonsTop Iranian cleric gunned down in broad daylightAyatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani was a member of the Assembly of Experts, a group of 88 clerics that selects the country’s supreme leader.By JNSAyatollah Abbas Ali Soleimani, a high-ranking Iranian cleric, was assassinated on Wednesday in the city of Babolsar in the northern province of Mazandaran.He was a member of the Assembly of Experts, a group of 88 clerics that selects the country’s supreme leader, and a former representative who officiated at the provincial level on behalf of current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.Soleimani was reportedly shot dead in a bank. CCTV footage showed him sitting on a chair, apparently waiting his turn, when the assailant nonchalantly approached him and shot him in the head with what appeared to be a submachine gun.The governor of Mazandaran, Mahmoud Hosseinipour Nouri, said the attacker was a local man and that “our information and documents indicate that this was not a security or terrorist act.”The assassin’s motive remained unclear as of Thursday. AssassinationAyatollahIran
