Salman Rushdie continues to be on ventilator, Iran media reacts, 10 facts in big story

The British American author continues to be in a critical state a day after he was stabbed at a literary event in New York.

New York: Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born British American novelist, continues to be on a ventilator and could lose an eye following a stabbing attack at a literary event in New York state Friday.

Here are the top 10 updates in this big story:

1. The writer's agent said that Salman Rushdie suffered severed nerves in an arm and damage to his liver, and could lose an eye. "The news is not good," Andrew Wylie, his agent, wrote in an email. "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged."
2. New York state police identified the suspected attacker as Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from Fairfield, New Jersey, adding that he stabbed Rushdie in the neck as well as the abdomen. The motive for the stabbing remains unclear.
3. The attack took place at the Chautauqua Institution, which hosts arts programs in a tranquil lakeside community 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of Buffalo city. "What many of us witnessed was a violent expression of hate that shook us to our core," the Chautauqua Institution said in a statement.
4. Rushdie spent years in hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his killing. The British author of "The Satanic Verses", which sparked fury among some Muslims who believed it was blasphemous, had to be airlifted to hospital for emergency surgery following the attack.
5. Carl LeVan, an American University politics professor attending the literary event, told AFP that the assailant had rushed onto the stage where Rushdie was seated and "stabbed him repeatedly and viciously."
6. Several people ran to the stage and took the suspect to the ground before a trooper present at the event arrested him. A doctor in the audience administered medical care until emergency first responders arrived.
7. French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose 12 staff members were gunned down in 2015 over cartoons about Prophet Mohammed considered blasphemous by many Muslims, said that nothing justified the stabbing of Salman Rushdie. "Nothing justifies a fatwa, a death sentence," Charlie Hebdo said.
8. The magazine's managing editor, known as Riss and a survivor of the 2015 attack, said Rushdie's assailant was probably a practicing Muslim and slammed the "little and mediocre spiritual heads who are intellectually nil and culturally ignorant".
9. Conservative media in Iran hailed the attack on Rushdie, with one state-owned paper saying the "neck of the devil" had been "cut by a razor". Ultra-conservative newspaper Kayhan, whose chief is appointed by current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote: "Bravo to this courageous and duty-conscious man who attacked the apostate and depraved Salman Rushdie in New York."
10. Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practicing Muslims and identifies as an atheist, was forced to go underground as a bounty was put on his head. He was granted police protection by the government in Britain, where he was at school and where he made his home, following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers.