News about Salman Rushdie's condition "not good": "He will probably lose an eye"

"The news is not good," said the email sent on Friday afternoon by Andrew Wylie, Salman Rushdie's literary agent, about the writer's state of health. "Salman will probably lose an eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged."

was stabbed Friday in Chautauqua, New York, as he was about to give a lecture on America's status as a safe haven for exiled writers.

The assailant, identified as Hadi Matar, 24, born in California but residing in Fairview, New Jersey, struck Rushdie in the abdomen and neck. As The New York Times reported, he tried to go ahead with his criminal intent even as several people rushed at him to stop him. Security sources consulted by The New York Post said that Matar disseminated messages on his social networks in defense of the Iranian regime, the Revolutionary Guard and Shiite extremism.

The Iranian threat

The attack on Rushdie comes just days after it was reported that Iran tried to assassinate former Trump Administration officials Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. and the arrest of an individual armed with an AK-47 who had been lurking around the New York residence of the Iranian-American activist Masih Alineyad.

Rushdie gained international notoriety when Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, issued a death sentence against him in the form of a fatwa following the publication of The Satanic Verses, a work that the fanatical ayatollah considered blasphemous.

Khomeini never withdrew his fatwa, and Iran even offered 3 million dollars to whomever that would assassinate Rushdie.