Khamenei-Produced Video On IRGC-Affiliated Website: The U.S. And Its Allies Are Behind Paris Attacks

I wish more news organizations would make use of MEMRI:

Following last weekend’s attacks in Paris by the Islamic State (ISIS), Iranian regime spokesmen, for the most part, argued that French and American support for takfiri terrorism and for ISIS was to blame for the events, and that the French are now paying the price for their government’s misguided policy in Syria and the Middle East.

In line with his policy, according to which the U.S. is the enemy of Iran and the Middle East, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in a video released by his office and a cartoon posted on his website, alleged that the U.S. and its allies were behind the Paris attacks, and that the U.S. had created ISIS and is using it as a tool to achieve its goals in the Middle East and the entire world.

In a phone conversation with French President Francois Hollande on November 17, Iranian President Hassan Rohani called “to fight ISIS with all our might,” but added that he “hopes that the group of countries that tried to use terrorism as a tool to promote its interests has understood the danger such a move poses for the world.” It should be mentioned that his response was characteristic of members of the pragmatic camp and the Iranian Foreign Ministry, who hinted that France is paying the price of using ISIS terrorism to promote its own interests.

Other regime spokesmen stressed that Khamenei had warned a while ago that Western support for these Syrian terrorist elements will come back to haunt them. They also complained of the hypocrisy of Western and European countries, who only express shock when the Sunni ISIS terrorism strikes their home, but did not express sympathy with its victims in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere in the world.

Expressions of solidarity and condolences from Iranian citizens outside the French Embassy in Tehran was criticized by newspapers aligned with the ideological camp. These newspapers criticized the “hypocrisy” of the pragmatic camp’s publications which attacked the West harshly – this time for what it called its pro-ISIS policy. They complained that while the pragmatic camp was quick to express solidarity with the Paris terror victims, it refrained from doing so with regard to the Iranian victims in Syria and Iraq.

This paper will review several Iranian officials’ reactions to the Paris attacks, as well as cartoons on the subject on Iranian websites. 

A video produced by the office of Leader Khamenei, titled “Who Was Behind the Paris Attacks,” and posted November 17, 2015 on a Facebook page affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), claimed that the real culprits behind the attacks were the U.S. and its allies, who, it said, had created ISIS and provided it with arms and training in order to further its own goals in the world.

The thumbnail preceding the video shows Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, U.S. President Obama, and ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in collusion.

View the video on MEMRI TV here, or click below to play

A cartoon posted November 16, 2015 on Khamenei’s website Khamenei.ir titled “Big Brother Goofed!” showed Uncle Sam throwing an ISIS boomerang at Syria and the boomerang returning to strike France.