Protesters in Iran have set on fire the ancestral home of the Islamic republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as two months of anti-regime demonstrations show no let up. The house in the city of Khomein in the western Markazi province was shown ablaze late on Thursday with crowds of jubilant protesters marching past, according to images posted on social media, verified by AFP.
Khomeini is said to have been born at the house in the town of Khomein – from where his surname derives – at the turn of the century. He became a cleric deeply critical of the US-backed shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, moved into exile and then returned in triumph from France in 1979 to lead the Islamic revolution. Khomeini died in 1989 but remains the subject of adulation by the clerical leadership under his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The house was later turned into a museum commemorating Khomeini. It was not immediately clear what damage it sustained. Iran’s Tasnim news agency later denied there had been a fire, saying the “door of the historic house is open to visitors”…
After the truth-shower 