Iran: US is responsible for any act of terror

Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - Monitoring: According to Press TV, speaking to reporters on Sunday, Kazem Gharibabadi, Secretary of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, said the Islamic Republic has all the necessary documents proving the United States set up terrorist groups not only inside Iran but across the region.

“Groups such as al-Qaeda, Daesh and the al-Nusra were all created by the United States and the responsibility for the terrorist acts by these groups and their members lies directly with the US.”

Gharibabadi said the US and its Western allies hatched a plot after the victory of the Islamic Revolution to “disintegrate various parts of the country by creating terrorist groups.”

One such group, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO) has martyred more than 17,000 oppressed Iranian people, he said, adding that Tehran has warned Western countries that the MKO would show no mercy to them.

“We have recently witnessed events in France and Albania.

These countries have now come to the conclusion that such groups are fundamentally terrorist and they even threaten their host countries,” Gharibabadi said.

MKO members spent many years in Iraq, where they were hosted and armed by the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

They sided with Saddam during the 1980-88 imposed war against Iran and then helped him quell domestic uprisings in various parts of the Arab country.

Albania began hosting the terrorists after the group was shunned by the government of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The European country is estimated to have been accommodating some 3,000 members of the terror cult since 2016.

Gharibabadi said while Iran has effectively worked to uproot terrorist groups in the region, the United States assassinated the top Iranian anti-terror Commander Lt. Gen. Qassem Soleimani and his companions.

Lt. General Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and his Iraqi fellow Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Second-in-Command of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), were martyred along with their companions in a US drone strike on January 3, 2020.

The two anti-terror commanders were tremendously revered across the region for their instrumental role in fighting and decimating the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

“Illegal unilateral” sanctions are among the principal crimes committed by Washington against Tehran, the official said, in reference to the United States’ numerous crimes against Iran.

“The US has committed a humanitarian crime against the Iranian nation. Washington has imposed the most extensive and cruel sanctions against the people of Iran.”

The top Iranian rights official said the US has imposed unilateral sanctions on over 25 countries but still claims to defend human rights.

In May 2018, the US began to unilaterally impose the “toughest ever” sanctions against Iran after then President Donald Trump left the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Preserved under the Joe Biden administration, the US sanctions have restricted the financial channels necessary to pay for basic goods and medicine.

Gharibabadi further said the United States’ record is replete with crimes against Iran and numerous other countries including Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Iraq and Afghanistan.