What Is the ‘Blood Covenant’ Group and Why Is It Giving $40 Million To Kill Trump?

A shocking online funding campaign has come to light, where a group named Blood Covenant is offering anyone who will kill US President Donald Trump a whopping $40.3 million through crowdfunding. The effort is believed to be tied to Iranian state networks and comes after a series of religious death orders, known as fatwas, were issued by senior Iranian clerics.

Iranian clerics have referred to Trump as an “enemy of Allah” while issuing fatwas for his assassination. The group’s website contains aggressive religious language, and an image of Trump appears within crosshairs. It says the bounty will be given to anyone who brings “justice” to the people behind the threat to the life of the “Deputy of Imam Mahdi,” a holy figure in Shia Islam.

The campaign seems to have connections to the Iranian government. The site invokes passages from the Quran to call on Muslims to donate money or even sacrifice themselves in the ambitious cause, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a U.S.-based research group. The campaign is “definitely a call to jihad and a call that legitimizes murder,” and it is being justified in religious terms, says MEMRI.

There’s another research group, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which discovered that there are signs that the person who operates the site might be Hossein Abbasifar, a man who used to be affiliated with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). This is the state-run media outlet of Iran. FDD uncovered the name Abbasifar through website data and said he had also worked for a government radio network in Iran.

The FDD analysts said the United States could now sanction Abbasifar and others tied to the network. They called for a rapid government response. Till now, the White House and the State Department have not made official statements. But a senior U.S. official, speaking to the Washington Free Beacon, said that the Trump administration is aware of the threats and will hold the responsible parties accountable.

The $40 million offer attracted more interest when Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, a senior cleric in Iran, announced a fatwa on June 29. Trump had attempted to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and needed to be punished, he said.

This is a major security issue. Some experts worry that the campaign could provoke attacks on Trump by individuals or groups who view doing so as a religious duty or quick way to make money.