‘US greed fueling Mideast crises’

Ayatollah Khatami blamed the US as well as the Bahraini and Saudi regimes for turning Bahrain into what he called a “large prison with hard labor,” IRNA reported.

“In the country’s prisons, medieval torture [techniques] is practiced under US management and they have drilled the leg of one man and burned the body of another,” he said.

The Iranian cleric said Israeli and British elements oversee the torture of protesters in Bahrain and their henchmen, who are supporters of the Ba’ath forces of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Zionists, and carry out their orders.

Ayatollah Khatami criticized Washington’s unconditional support for the Israeli regime and said, “[US President Barack] Obama made watery remarks regarding the formation of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 1967 but backtracked on even those comments under pressure from the Zionists.”