Iranian Speaker: Foreigners Use Extremists to Sow Discord among Muslims

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani blasted certain foreign states for financing and equipping the extremist groups to create rift among Muslims and the Islamic countries.

Larijani said on Saturday that the hardliners and extremist groups, backed by foreign money and facilities, have sown seeds of dissension in the world of Islam.

He said the hardliners have created pessimism and disturbances in the Muslim world.

“The extremist groups have now turned into an internal problem for the Muslim world, harming Muslims more than foreign problems,” Larijani added.

He underlined that the extremist groups have caused political strife in the Muslim world as is shown in Syria.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.

The Palestinian al-Manar weekly reported that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been financing and supplying armed rebels in Syria with more explosive materials they have recently purchased from the US, Israel and UK in a bid to help the terrorists carry out their anti-government operations in the Arab country.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have smuggled the explosives to Syria with the assistance of the intelligence services of the Arab country’s neighboring countries, including Turkey, the al-Manar quoted informed security sources as saying in December.

The sources also disclosed that there are special terrorist garrisons in Turkey which are administered by the security officers of Israel and western countries.

So far, several sources have disclosed that Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been financing and dispatching terrorists in Syria and smuggle weapons to the crisis-hit country for campaign against Assad’s government.

Reports coming from Syria in mid 2012 said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar in collaboration with the US and Britain have set up a secret command center in Turkey to supply the terrorists in Syria with military and communications aid to seize control of Aleppo city from the Syrian government.

The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups battling the President Bashar al-Assad’s government have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.

The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

According to the report, material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border.

Opposition activists who several months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons – most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military in the past – has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar.