Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being behind the
anti-Islam film that has sparked violent protests in the Muslim world,
AFP reported on Friday.
Speaking at a military parade in Tehran,
Ahmadinejad called the film an Israeli plot "to divide (Muslims) and
spark sectarian conflict."
The parade, displaying military
hardware, marked the anniversary of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.
According to Iranian state media, the military displayed Shahab 3, Sejjil, Qadr, Sahab and Zelzal missiles during the parade.
Iran
has claimed the Shahab 3 has a range that can reach Israel and they
have reportedly experimented with integrating a nuclear warhead onto the
missile.
Ahmadinejad's comments on the anti-Islam film came after Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier this week that the American-made video is tied to "Islamophobic policies of arrogant powers and Zionists."
Khamenei
added that it is incumbent upon Western governments to prove to the
Muslim world that they are against attacks against Islam. "Leaders of
[the US and European countries] must prove that they were not
accomplices in this big crime in practice by preventing such crazy
measures,” he said.
The
13-minute English-language movie, which was circulated on the Internet
under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims," mocks the Muslim prophet
Muhammad and portrays him as a buffoon.
The film helped generate
a torrent of violence last week in which the US ambassador to Libya and
three other Americans were killed in an attack in Benghazi. US and
other foreign embassies were stormed in cities in Asia, Africa and the
Middle East by furious Muslims.
For many Muslims, any depiction
of the prophet is blasphemous. Caricatures deemed insulting in the past
have provoked protests and drawn condemnations from officials,
preachers, ordinary Muslims and many Christians.
Nakoula Basseley
Nakoula, 55, a Coptic Christian widely linked to the film in media
reports, was voluntarily questioned on Saturday by US authorities
investigating possible violations of his probation for a bank fraud
conviction.
Initial reports
described the filmmaker as Sam Bacile, a self-described “Israeli Jew”
and now a Los Angeles property developer, who said that the $5 million
movie was financed by donations from 100 Jews.
Reuters and Tom Tugend contributed to this report.