Iran marked the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the United States embassy in Tehran with mass rallies, as officials portrayed the US and Israel as having suffered defeats in war and politics.
Thousands marched through central Tehran on Wednesday, burning American and Israeli flags and chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”. Effigies and caricatures of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were also carried through the streets.
One depiction showed Mr Trump as a ferocious dog being held on a leash by Mr Netanyahu. The demonstrations came as Iran remains embroiled in a war launched by the US and Israel on February 28.
The conflict has included the killing of Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and has roiled global energy markets while disrupting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani told demonstrators that the US and Israel had suffered a “decisive defeat”, including in Tuesday’s US congressional midterm elections, which were described as a rebuke of Mr Trump’s Republican Party.
Mr Zakani attributed what he called US weaknesses to Iranian “steadfastness and strength”. Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, repeated the message in a post on X, saying: “Trump failed both in war and in politics. We will certainly impose even more defeats upon him.”
The anniversary recalls November 4 1979, when Iranian students stormed the US embassy and took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days. The crisis cemented the rupture between Tehran and Washington, which have had no formal diplomatic relations since.
