Iran says West will kill Rushdie

An Iranian newspaper predicted yesterday that Western intelligence agents would assassinate the author Salman Rushdie, then blame Tehran for the killing, AP reports from Nicosia, Cyprus.

The English-language paper Kayhan International wrote that Mr Rushdie's 'erstwhile protectors have him like a blindfolded rat in a maze. When he gets to the last leg of the labyrinth and he is almost there, bang - Rushdie will make literary history as perhaps the most willing stooge of Western imperialism the 20th century will ever know'.