Charlie Kirk shot dead at US university

Tehran - BORNA - A single shot targeted Charlie Kirk on Wednesday as he was sitting under a tent during a campus debate at Utah Valley University in the city of Orem.

Armature footage showed him collapse after the bullet hit him in the neck, while the “activist,” who used to be known for his extreme right-wing lean, was fielding questions about gun violence.

Kirk had travelled to the university, despite heavy backlash arising from news about his potential presence there. An online petition opposing his participation had earlier drawn nearly 1,000 signatures.

The 31-year-old co-founded “Turning Point USA,” when he was an 18-year-old student. Upon foundation, the body began spreading conservative views among American college and university students.

Kirk’s rise has been described as inseparable from that of Trump’s, his having worked tirelessly to mobilize youth support for the incumbent US president.

Trump would, meanwhile, try to provide him with considerable countrywide visibility and legitimacy that catapulted him to the center stage of his so-called “Make America Great Again” policies.

Kirk had also consistently positioned himself as a staunch supporter of the Israeli regime through both organizational initiatives and personal advocacy.

He used to try to advertise the regime as a cradle of, what he would call, “religious and democratic values.”

Among numerous other things, the support had seen him try to justify the regime’s October 2023-present war of genocide in the Gaza Strip that has so far claimed the lives of at least 64,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

He once alleged that the regime was not starving Palestinians as part of the genocide, rather attributing the dire humanitarian situation in the coastal sliver to “mismanagement.”