Rafsanjani: All famous terrorists backed by US

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=9067

Iran\'s former president\'s statement comes in response to latest US report slamming Tehran\'s human rights record.

TEHRAN - Iran\'s influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday that all famous terrorists get their money and support from Washington, in response to the latest US government report slamming Tehran\'s human rights record.

\"All the world-known and notorious terrorists are made with US money, support and experience,\" he said in his Friday sermon, broadcast live on state radio.

According to an annual United States government report released Wednesday, human rights conditions worsened last year in Iran as well as in China, Cuba and Myanmar.

The US State Department human rights report gave a bleak assessment of Iran\'s rights record, amid a \"pursuit of numerous violations,\" against fundamental rights that notably targeted government opponents in politics and the media.

Younesi bluntly accused the United States of supporting terrorism because its State Department lists the Mujahedeen Khalq Organization as a terrorist organization.

The MKO was given sanctuary by Iraq\'s then-president Saddam in 1986 after being driven out of Iran in the wake of a vicious power struggle following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

\"An example of the US action which it calls combatting terrorism, are those terrorists who are serving the US, they explode the Shiite Muslim shrine of Imam Reza and martyred a lot of worshippers, and now they are in US asylum either in Iraq or the US,\" Rafsanjani said.

Nearly a dozen people were killed when a bomb exploded at the Shiite Muslim shrine of the eighth Imam Reza in northeastern city of Mashad on June 20, 1994.

Iran blamed the blast on the People\'s Mujahedeen, also known as the MKO, which were disarmed under a treaty with the US military in Iraq after the US-led war ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

The MKO\'s deal with the US forces angered Tehran, which accused Washington of being equivocal in its \"war on terrorism\".

About nine months ago, Iran\'s intelligence minister demanded the US extradite a suspect in the 1994 Mashad bombing.

Iran and the United States cut off diplomatic relations 23 years ago but have been holding talks recently on matters of mutual interest.

Rafsanjani also saluted Iranians\' participation in last week\'s first round of parliamentary elections.

\"The people\'s participation in the elections was able to neutralize the psychological war which was headed by the US, thus saving the country from the whirlpool they had envisioned for it,\" he said.

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