Tehran [Iran], September 12 (ANI): Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei launched a fierce rebuke against Washington, accusing the US government of attempting to justify 'a reckless and unlawful war against Iran' by invoking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks.

Reacting to comments made by US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth during a 9/11 observance ceremony, Baghaei denounced what he termed fundamental contradictions in American foreign policy, questioning Washington's 'exclusive authority' over defining terrorism and the legitimacy of violence. 

'The narrative advanced by the US Secretary of War on the anniversary of 9/11 is riddled with fundamental contradictions, you cannot wage aggression, carry out cowardly assassinations, and inflict civilian casualties while simultaneously claiming exclusive authority to define terrorism and determine whose violence is legitimate,' Baghaei stated in a post on X.

Countering US historical claims regarding the perpetrators of the 2001 attacks, the Iranian spokesperson affirmed that Iran had no involvement in the 9/11 terror attack, rather attributing the incident to perpetrators 'armed, organised, or otherwise cultivated' by the US itself. 

He added that the US' 'war on terror' launched after 9/11 caused decades of occupation, destruction, and loss of civilian life across Iraq and Afghanistan, calling it 'utterly absurd' of Hegseth to use that same narrative to justify today's hostilities against Iran.

'The perpetrators of 9/11 were not Iranians; they were the very same people whom the US itself had armed, organised, or otherwise cultivated in the preceding decades. Yet the so-called "war on terror" that followed brought Afghanistan and Iraq years of war, occupation, civilian deaths, and devastation on a massive scale,' Baghaei wrote. 

'Against this backdrop, invoking the anniversary of 9/11 to justify a reckless unlawful war against Iran is utterly absurd. A criminal war that has involved the assassination of officials of a sovereign state and the targeting of civilians, including women and children, cannot be made morally coherent simply by wrapping it in the language of counterterrorism,' he added. 

To further mock the US administration, Baghaei accompanied his statement with the popular four-panel 'Gru's Plan' meme image template from Despicable Me, visually underscoring what Tehran views as a flawed American strategy.

https://x.com/IRIMFA_SPOX/status/2098527237607764415

Baghaei's remarks came directly in response to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who delivered a hardline address at a 9/11 memorial ceremony framing military actions against Iran as part of America's continued counterterrorism mission.

'Over the past six months, we have laid waste to the world's most prolific state sponsor of terrorism. Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century. That cheered on 911. A regime that has sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans for decades, killing thousands, including our comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan,' Hegseth declared.

Hegseth praised US strikes that destroyed Iranian military assets and naval vessels, warning that economic and military pressure on Tehran would continue to intensify until the threat was eliminated.

'But they did not factor in this president. The United States has killed their leaders, destroyed their air force, and their navy rests at the bottom of the sea. Their defenses are gone. We're still sending terrorists where they belong to hell and tankers to the bottom of the ocean where they belong. And we are ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. The economic pressure tightens every day. We control the strait. We will finish this fight,' he said. 

Concluding his address, Hegseth cited biblical verse and slogans from Flight 93 passengers to emphasise continued military resolve of the US. 

'But we also know, as the scripture says, the world will always have war and rumors of war. And so the fight goes on. And so we raise up a new generation of strong, brave warriors who will say, 'When it matters most, send me.' or as they said on Flight 93, Todd Beamer's favorite famous words, 'Let's roll',' he stated. 

On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger aircraft in a coordinated attack against the United States. Two planes were flown into the World Trade Centre's Twin Towers in New York, while a third struck the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defence, in Arlington, Virginia.

The fourth aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew attempted to regain control of the plane.

The attacks killed 2,977 people, according to official US figures, making September 11 one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history. (ANI)