Woman stabbed date in Vegas hotel room to ‘avenge’ US killing of Iranian military leader, police say
A woman stabbed her date, whom she had met online, in retaliation for the 2020 death of an Iranian military leader killed in a US drone strike, police said. Nika Nikoubin, 21, has been charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary, CBS Las Vegas affiliate KLAS-TV reported.
Henderson Police Department via AP
Nikoubin and the man met online on a dating site, Henderson police wrote in an arrest report. The couple then agreed to meet at the Sunset Station hotel in Las Vegas on March 5, renting a room together.
While in the room, the couple began having sex when Nikoubin blindfolded the man, police said. Nikoubin then turned off the lights, and a few minutes later the man “felt pain in the side of his neck,” KLAS reported.
Nikoubin allegedly stabbed the man in the neck “in revenge against US troops for the murder of Qassem Soleimani in 2020”, police wrote in a report.
US forces killed Soleimani, a top general in the Iranian military, in a drone strike in January 2020. Soleimani led the Quds Expeditionary Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. responsible for the external operations of the Islamic Republic. The strike drew a wish for “crushing revenge” from Iran.
After being stabbed, the man pushed Nikoubin out of himself and fled the room to call 911, police said.
Nikoubin also ran out of the room, telling a hotel employee that she had just stabbed a man, police said.
During a conversation with police, Nikoubin told an investigator “that she wanted revenge”, police said. She said she listened to a song called “Grave Digger”, which “gave her the motivation…to carry out her revenge”.
The man’s current status was unavailable, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
Nikoubin is due in court for a preliminary hearing on March 24, the newspaper said. It is not yet clear if she has a lawyer.
The US Department of Defense blamed Soleimani for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and said he was behind recent attacks on coalition bases in Iraq, including one in December 2019 that killed an American defense contractor.