Anti-ISIL Coalition A Lie: Top Iranian Cleric
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A senior Iranian cleric described the US-led anti-ISIL Coalition as a sham and slammed Washington and its regional allies for the creation of the terrorist group.
“The US-led coalition against ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) is a lie and will remain useless,” Tehran's Provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said while addressing a large group of worshippers here in Iran’s capital city.
Noting that the US has created a coalition of 28 countries in the name of fighting ISIL, the senior cleric criticized the move.
“Who created ISIL in the first place and who supported it?” he asked, adding that everyone knows who was behind arming the terrorist group.
He referred to the US, Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia as countries that provided arms and money to the militant group.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is a militant group in Iraq and Syria believed to be supported by the West and some regional Arab countries.
The terrorist group claims as an independent state the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant, including Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, and Southern Turkey.
On September 12, US President Barack Obama said the United States is assembling an international coalition to “snuff out” the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group.
Iranian officials have criticized Washington’s bid to build global support for military action against the ISIL as absurd.
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on Monday dismissed as “absurd, hollow and biased” the US announcement of leading a coalition to battle the ISIL.
Ayatollah Khamenei also pointed to the contradictions in words and deeds of the US officials, stressing that the main objective behind the US plan to battle the ISIL is to maintain military presence in the region.
