Iranian president says US gov't used terror attacks as pretext for invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan which have caused "more than 1 million" casualties.
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the Sept. 11 attacks was part of a "complicated game planned to influence the human community," and was a "pretext" for the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively, Iranian Press TV reported Sunday.The Iranian president, speaking at the Ahl al-Bayt World Assembly in Tehran, noted that the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan resulted in the casualties of "more than one million people."RELATED:'Iran calls on Assad to enter talks with opposition' On my mind: Ahmadinejad’s September ritual The Ahl al-Bayt convention, which opened Sunday with the Islamic Republic president's address, was meant to be a platform for discussing regional developments, as well as the "wave of Islamic Awakening," Press TV said. This was not the first time that Ahmadinejad has raised suspicions that 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York that resulted in the deaths of 3,000 people were part of a hidden US government plan, or at least used as a pretext for the US invasions in the Middle East and Central Asia.In 2008, BBC quoted Ahmadinejad as saying in a speech in Qom that while "a building collapsed and they said 3,000 people had been killed [they] never published their names," adding that event in New York was "suspect."In that speech, the Iranian president also said the US used the attack as a "pretext" for wars that resulted in the deaths of a "million people."In 2010, the Iranian president used the United Nations as a platform to raise his suspicions, saying that most of the world believed the US government was behind the terror attacks in order protect Israel, MSNBC reported.