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Ahmadinejad casts doubt on veracity of 9/11 attacks

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday reaffirmed his doubts about the accepted version of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, describing the strikes as a “suspect event.”

“Four or five years ago a suspect event took place in New York,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to a public rally in the holy city of Qom.

“A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed, whose names were never published,” he said. “Under this pretext they [the US] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then a million people have been killed.”

This was the third time in just over a week that Ahmadinejad has publicly raised doubts about the Sept. 11 airborne attacks on New York and Washington carried out by al-Qaeda militants which killed nearly 3,000 people.

He raised the theme for the first time at a ceremony on April 8, Iran’s national day.

He then expressed his doubts again one day later at an address at the shrine of the eighth imam of Shiite Islam Reza in the northeastern city of Mashhad, one of Iran’s most sacred sites.

The speech in Qom — which was the first time he had described the attacks as “suspect” — took place at the shrine of Massoumeh, the sister of the imam Reza.

Ahmadinejad did not say who he believed was behind the attacks. On April 8, he questioned how the two planes piloted by al-Qaeda militants could have evaded surveillance to crash into the World Trade Center.

Meanwhile the Ahmadinejad government’s spokesman yesterday offered his resignation amid stinging domestic media criticism over his handling of a planned government reshuffle.

Gholam Hossein Elham has been under fire since he rejected reports the economy and interior ministers were to be sacked as an “April fool’s joke” before confirming days later they were being asked to step down.

“I voice my readiness to withdraw from all government positions,” said Elham, a key aide of the president, in a letter to Ahmadinejad released by the presidency and quoted by the Fars news agency.

It was not clear if Ahmadinejad would accept his resignation.

The letter came two days after a state television news report ridiculed Elham’s handling of the reshuffle plans and his holding of several jobs which also include the post of justice minister and a seat on the Guardians Council.

“Maybe by holding several different posts, Mr Spokesman has forgotten that he is also the government spokesman,” the state television reporter quipped sardonically.

Elham has also been under pressure after parliament introduced a bill proposing that members of the Guardians Council, Iran’s hardline vetting body, cannot hold posts in the government.

“After my appointment as minister of justice and especially as government spokesman, criticism by some critical anti-government media, including state broadcasting, and some MPs, has intensified,” he said. “This has created doubts in people’s minds.”

Although Elham was quoted as saying last week Economy Minister Davoud Danesh Jaafari and Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi were set to step down, their resignations have still not taken place.

The decision to replace the key ministers — which would be the ninth changes to the Ahmadinejad Cabinet since he came to power in 2005 — has been sharply criticized in the media and by MPs.
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