'Al-Qaeda official killed in Iran is made-up info': Tehran spokesperson slams US

Iran on Saturday, November 14 "categorically denied" reports that senior Al-Qaeda member had been killed in the country. Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh, while referring to the New York Times report about the killing of Al-Qaeda's second-in-command in Tehran, denied any presence of the terrorist group’s members in Iran. 

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Khatibzadeh accused the United States and Israel of feeding made-up information to the media and advised journalists to be cautious of being "entrapped by the Hollywood-style scenarios fabricated by the US and the Zionist regime’s officials". 

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"In order to shirk responsibility for the criminal activities of that group (al-Qaeda) and the other terrorist groups in the region, Washington and Tel Aviv try every now and then to draw a link between Iran and such groups through falsification and the leakage of fabricated information to the media," Khatibzadeh noted in a statement. 

Slams US' "failed policies"

Iran also blamed the failed policies of the United States and its allies in the region for creating Al-Qaeda. Tehran alleged that the false accusations levelled by Washington are part of the broader "economic, intelligence, and psychological war" that it has waged against the Iranian people since the current administration took over in 2017. 

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"Although the US has not refrained from levelling any false accusation against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the past, such approach has become a permanent modus operandi at the current US administration, as the White House has attempted to make advances in implementing its Iranophobia plot by repeating such allegations," the spokesman added.

Since President Donald Trump took over in 2017, his administration has overseen the reimposition of sanctions on Tehran and the withdrawal of the United States from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal. 

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