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AFP
Washington
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that Iran was the uniting factor behind protests around the Middle East, saying demonstrators in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran itself opposed the clerical regime.
While acknowledging diverse local reasons for the unrest that has swept the Middle East as well as other regions, Pompeo pointed the finger at Iran, considered an arch-enemy by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Iraqi premier Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned “because the people were demanding freedom and the security forces had killed dozens and dozens of people. That’s due in large part to Iranian influence,” Pompeo said. “The same is true in Lebanon, the protests in Beirut,” he said at the University of Louisville.
“They want Hezbollah and Iran out of their country, out of their system as a violent and a repressive force,” he said.
He said that protests inside Iran -- which Amnesty International says have killed more than 200 people -- showed that Iranians were also “fed up.” “They see a theocracy that is stealing money, the ayatollahs stealing tens and tens of millions of dollars,” he said.
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03/12/2019
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