Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei says Western powers seeking to tarnish image of Muslims through propaganda and distortion of realities

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that Western powers were seeking to tarnish the image of Muslims through propaganda and distortion of realities.

In his address to Iranian naval forces and Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) personnel in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Sayyed Khamenei pointed to the recent terrorist attacks in Norway. “An example of Western propaganda happened in the recent crimes committed in a Northern European country, where from the very first hours they the Western powers tried to put the blame on Muslims,” his eminence noted. “This is indicative of evilness and falsity of the Western propaganda,” his eminence added.

On Friday, at least 94 people were killed and scores injured in twin shooting and bomb attacks in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, and a nearby island. One of the perpetrators of the terrorist incident, Anders Behring Breivik, who has made a confession to involvement in the armed attack, has extreme right-wing views. Breivik had expressed his hatred for Muslims, leftist parties, and the youth wing of Norway's ruling Labor party on the internet before the shooting incident.

Sayyed Khamenei also made a reference to the ongoing wave of Islamic awakening in the Middle East and North Africa and called on the Arab nations to persevere and not to be distracted from the main objectives of their revolutions. “The only salvage for the regional nations is to take this path, the outcomes of which are gradually unfolding,” the Iranian supreme leader added.