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U.S. military, CIA terrorists: Iran

— PHOTO: AFP

FIGHTING FIT: Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard special forces participate in military manoeuvres at an undisclosed location near the Gulf Sea in this April 3, 2007 file picture.

DUBAI: Countering American efforts to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, the Iranian Parliament has said it is the U.S. military and the CIA that deserve this designation.

Iran’s Parliament (Majlis) said the Army and the CIA were terrorists because of the atomic bombing of Japan. A statement by 215 lawmakers also blamed Washington for the use of depleted uranium ammunition in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Besides, it cited American support of the killings of Palestinians by Israel and the bombing and killing of civilians in Iraq.

“The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are terrorists and also nurture terror,” the statement added. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate voted in favour of a resolution that urged the State Department to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a terrorist organisation.

Analysts point out that the move could affect businesses linked with the Guards, as it could allow the U.S. Treasury Department to move against them. The Guards are the elite defenders of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. The organisation gained considerable popularity during the eight year Iran-Iraq war that was fought in the eighties.

Asked to comment on the U.S. move to target the Guards, Iran’s foreign office spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said designating “the armed forces of the UN member states on the list of terrorist groups is unprecedented”. Mr. Hosseini said there would be no let up in the Iranian cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency to defuse tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

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