Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, head of Basij militia. Photo: Wikipedia.

The head of Iran’s Basij militia said Israel was responsible for the terrorist attacks in Paris, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported on Wednesday.

“If we write the word Israel instead of ISIL [Islamic State], the behind the scene of the recent events in France will come into light,” said Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Basij.

Naqdi continued, “The ISIL is the infantry unit of the US and the usurper Zionist regime since they don’t have fighters today anymore and have lost power to fight, and they have created the ISIL by making investment on the fools.”

He claimed that the terrorist attacks in Europe were promoted by the US and its clients to justify their presence in the Middle East and escape criticism, and called Saudi Arabia the “dealer of the recent incidents,” because it had created Islamic State ideology.

Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jayazeri said that the Paris attacks constituted France reaping what its policies had sowed, and warned the US and its allies against “exploiting” the attacks as they did on September 11, 2001.

“The French people paid the price for their government’s support for ISIL and the Takfiri [Sunni Muslims accusing other Muslims of heresy] terrorism,” he said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani echoed these sentiments, portraying Iran as a victim of terrorism, rather than its primary state-sponsor, and claiming that Western countries supported Sunni Islamist terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq in order to exploit the ensuing chaos.

“The Takfiri terrorist groups, including the ISIL, have been created with the aim of creating a wave of Islamophobia in the world,” said Rouhani, according to Fars.