Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shoots back at Israel, US (VIDEO)
Iranian students hold posters of assassinated nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan and a picture of the family of slain nuclear scientist Dariush Rezaei with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran on Jan. 29. Khamenei said Iran would defend both its oil production and nuclear program while offering aid to anyone attacking Israel.
Iran’s Supreme Leader offered stern warnings to its enemies today, suggesting it would help any country or group eliminate the “cancer” that is Israel.
During weekly prayers in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered assistance in attacks against Israel, giving public voice to a long unspoken policy.
“The Zionist regime is really the cancerous tumor of this region and it needs to be removed and will be removed,” Khamenei said, CNN reported.
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He told cheering supporters that Iran has enjoyed victories over Israel in the past, and it won’t hesitate to do so again.
“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this," Khamenei said, according to the Associated Press.
“We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hezbollah against Israel in 2006, and in the 22-day war (in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas),” he said.
State TV also broadcast Khamenei’s comments, which offered a skewed view of events that both ended in ceasefires, The Telegraph said.
Israel claimed it crippled Hamas during the 2008-09 Gaza conflict, and United Nations intervention helped halt killing in southern Lebanon.
Khamenei also said Iran would protect its controversial nuclear program, and its oil production, against any foreign threats.
"In response to threats of oil embargo and war, we have our own threats which will be implemented at the right time, if necessary," he said, according to the Herald Sun.
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Meanwhile, to celebrate the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic revolution, a cardboard cut-out of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the theocracy, was taken around Tehran to commemorate his return from exile in Paris. The incident was lampooned ridiculed on social media sites and criticized by government officials, according to the BBC.