A far-left University of Maryland research assistant is facing backlash after appearing to joke about bombing parts of Los Angeles and Miami to kill Cuban and Iranian Americans who support President Trump’s military strikes against Iran.
Djamil Lakhdar-Hamina made the incendiary remarks in a video that was streamed on YouTube on March 1 on a channel belonging to Cosmonaut Magazine, a socialist publication.
In the clip, Lakhdar-Hamina criticizes members of the Iranian diaspora who support US military action against the Iranian regime before launching into a shocking comment suggesting American cities with immigrant communities should be bombed.
“Seeing the Iranian diaspora just cheer on their country getting just bombed — there has to be an Olympic competition between the worst gusanos in the world on the podium, competing for gold,” Lakhdar-Hamina said in the video.
“You have the Cubans on the one side and the Iranians on the other, you know. Just bomb large swaths of LA and Miami. It’d be a better planet for it.”
The term “gusanos,” which translates to “worms” in Spanish, has historically been used as a slur by the Cuban communist regime to describe Cuban exiles and critics of Fidel Castro.
Los Angeles and Miami are home to large Iranian and Cuban American populations, many of whom fled authoritarian regimes in their home countries.
“I mean, just imagine being the kind of dog who cheers on your country getting bombed, thinking that somehow this is going to help your country at all,” Lakhdar-Hamina added.
A clip with the inflammatory comments was posted to X by Canary Mission, an organization that documents anti-semitism, among other things. Critics blasted the remarks as an apparent call for violence in two of the country’s largest cities, tagging the FBI and flagging the comments as “terrorism.”
The remarks come amid heightened political tensions over US military action against Iran, which has divided some diaspora communities between supporters of aggressive US policy toward the regime and critics who fear escalation.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
