TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei has called the Iraq conflict a “showdown between humanity and barbarian savagery” and criticized Western media for portraying it as a war between Shias and Sunni Muslims.
Outside powers have often exploited ethnic and religious divisions in Muslim states and “they dream of a war between Shias and Sunnis” that would not happen, he said in Tehran, according to an official statement.
He warned against what he called Western propaganda about “a cast of morons and Saddam Hussein leftovers,” apparent references to the radical Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Sunni tribes who once sided with the country’s deposed dictator and now fight with ISIL.
“The incident in Iraq is not a war between Shias and Sunnis,” Ayatollah Khamenei said at a meeting with families of victims of a 1981 terrorist bombing that destroyed the Tehran headquarters of the ruling Islamic Republic Party and killed nearly 100 people, mostly parliamentarians.
“It is a battle between supporters and opponents of terrorism, it’s a war between fans of America and the West and those favoring independence for their nation,” he said of the Iraq violence.
“Its a showdown between humanity and barbarian savagery.”
ISIS militants have seized a broad swath of territory in northern and western Iraq in recent weeks in their quest to topple the Shia government in Baghdad, and set up their own caliphate.
In his speech, Khamenei characterized the events in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East as a Western conspiracy.
Today, the enemy is investing in civil wars in the region and pins hope on a Shia-Sunni war to relieve itself of the concern of Islamic Awakening (Arab uprising), he said.
Last week, Khamenei said he opposed intervention in Iraq by the United States or any other country to stop ISIS.
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