Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations denied on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic was involved in orchestrating Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel last October, but in the same interview said the Iranian regime arms and trains Palestinian terrorist groups. , admitted that he had given authority.
“We are not taking part in this decision,” Amir Saeed Iravani said. NBC News Anchor Lester Holt When asked about Iran’s role in the October 7, 2021 attack that left 1,200 dead in the Jewish state.
“This was a Palestinian decision and a Palestinian implementation. We have no role in this matter,” he added.
But Iravani was quick to detail the Iranian regime’s extensive efforts to support “resistance” against Israel and the West in the region.
“In the case of Palestine, [sic]we send arms [sic]We are training them and empowering them,” the UN ambassador said. “But with other parts of the region, some of the resistance groups, we have some coordination, cooperation, consultation, and possibly funding.”
The United States says Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, receives large subsidies from Iran and receives about $100 million a year in funding from the capital, Tehran.
U.S. officials also linked Iran to the Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, and groups in Iraq and Syria that have targeted U.S. forces since Israel’s declaration of war on Hamas. This led to the deaths of three U.S. military personnel last year. Month.
Iravani denied that the Iranian government is providing weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The Houthis were redesignated as a terrorist organization by the Biden administration earlier this year after repeated attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea and sparked a U.S.-led bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Asked if Iran was sending advanced weapons to the Houthis, the ambassador said: “Absolutely not.”
“No. It’s up to them,” he added when pressed about Iran’s role in directing the Houthi offensive in the Red Sea. “They have their own weapons. You know, they’ve been at war for eight years. They have a lot of experience.”
