Mosques in Manassas, Virginia, and Dearborn, Michigan, held memorials honoring the “martyr” — i.e., eliminated terrorist leader of Iran — Ayatollah Khamenei. And one of the mosques reportedly has multiple ties to prominent Democrat politicians.
The Dearborn imam blamed Israel for the Trump administration’s decision to launch Operation Epic Fury, which Trump himself emphatically denied — the Iranian terrorist regime simply threatened and attacked Americans one too many times.
As a reminder, Ayatollah Khamenei spent almost four decades leading a regime that was the worst state sponsor of terrorism in the world. In recent years, he increased religious persecution, helped orchestrate the worst day of massacre of Jews since the Holocaust (Oct. 7), and stepped up politically-motivated executions. This year, Khamenei oversaw a bloody crackdown on anti-regime protesters within his nation that left over 30,000 Persians dead. This is the man whom some American Muslims wanted to honor and mourn.
Fox News explained:
Located in Manassas, Virginia, and Dearborn Heights, Michigan, the mosques both publicly advertised events eulogizing the slain leader. In a flyer for the “Potluck Iftar” honoring Khamenei, which is a ceremony where Muslims break their Ramadan fast, the Manassass Mosque, which has faced questions over alleged ties to Iran, referred to Khamenei as “our leader.” Meanwhile, at the Islamic House of Wisdom (IHW) in Dearborn Heights, which has also faced scrutiny over its ties to Iran, the center’s Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi called the U.S. military offensive “evil” and argued that it was based on false-pretenses.
The Dearborn imam ranted irrationally and inaccurately, “You promised that America First, and now we ended up to have [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu first.”
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He furiously, mendaciously, and ominously raved, “Now we realize that all their talk about nuclear [unintelligible] was a joke, it didn’t even exist. From the beginning talking about regime change, we want to change, because we don’t like it. So, starting an illegal – illegal war – and then go and bomb the house of the leader of the country. Where is justification for this? Where is their reason for this, at all?”
The justification would be the half a century of Iranian regime Jihad against America. Apparently this imam wants us to ignore the fact that Khamenei regularly affirmed “death to America” was his policy. Or perhaps the imam simply supported that policy and so sees no issue with it. The imam certainly claimed that highly dubious reports of the U.S.-Israeli strike deliberately wrecking a Tehran school were true.
From Fox again:
Both the Manassas Mosque and the IWH were listed in a July 2023 letter that Congressional Republicans sent to former Attorney General Merrick Garland and former Director of National Intelligence during the Biden administration, Avril Haines. The letter called out a network of U.S.-based mosques throughout the country that have received financial funding from the Alavi Foundation, which lawmakers said “is a large foundation that has been in litigation for years because of allegations it operates on behalf of the Iranian regime, a state sponsor of terrorism,” or have other close ties to the Iranian regime.
The GOP letter accused, “The Imam of IHW, Mohammad Ali Elahi, served as the head of ‘political ideology’ for the Iranian Navy in the 1980s, according to a publicly available Central Intelligence Agency report. He personally claims to be ‘friends’ with three former Iranian Presidents, and since moving to the US, he has had seemingly non-stop contact with senior regime officials.” But he also seemingly has ties to Democrats like John Kerry and Kamala Harris.
FOX reporting a Michigan mosque held a memorial service to honor Ayatollah Khamenei for his “martyrdom”
The imam then called the U.S. military “evil”
You will never guess who this imam is…
A good friend of the Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/LXwun8UnvK
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 3, 2026
If true, that’s a connection worth investigating.
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