Amid speculation that Iran and the United States might cooperate to fight the insurgency in Iraq, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed Washington for the ongoing Iraq crisis. He accused the US of using Sunni Islamists and followers of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to establish an Iraq under US hegemony and “ruled by its stooges.”
In his first reaction to the Iraq crisis, Ali Khamenei said he “strongly oppose(d) the intervention of the U.S. and others in the domestic affairs of Iraq”. He added that the Iraqi people and government with the help of top clerics will be able to fend off the extremists and end the sedition. He warned that the US was trying to portray the Iraq crisis as a Shia-Sunni conflict, but it was not so. He added that the “extremists” were against both Shia and Sunnis who seek an independent Iraq.
His condemnation comes three days after President Barack Obama announced that he planned to deploy 300 military advisers to help the Iraqi government.
Iran too has been aiding the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It was reported that last week the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, General Ghasem Soleimani, was in Iraq to consult with the government there on how to curtail the growing insurgency.
The insurgency, spearheaded by Sunni extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), strengthened further on Sunday, June 22nd, as militants overran a second post on the Syrian border and took control of three towns — Rawa, Ana and Rutba –in Iraq’s western Anbar province. The gains have helped secure supply lines to Syria.
Both Tehran and Washington were taken aback by the swiftness with which ISIS managed to gain control of large sections of northern and western Iraq since June 10, including the north’s biggest city Mosul.
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