Iran: US troops and CIA 'terrorists'

TEHRAN -- Iranian lawmakers on Saturday branded the US troops and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as terrorist groups, according to a statement released by the Iranian state media.

The statement said that more than 200 Iranian parliament members (MPs) labeled the US army and the CIA as terrorists since they support terrorism. It is apparently a sharp reaction tit for tat over the decisions of their US counterparts calling for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organization."

"They (the US army and the CIA) support Israel's state terrorism in its crackdown on Palestinian and Lebanese people, trained Al-Qaida and Taliban and established secret prisons in Europe, torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib," added the statement.

Moreover, the Iranian MPs demanded the United Nations to intervene in the "global problem of US prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and secret jails in other countries."

The statement was just released three days after the US Senate and the House of Representatives called on the US State Department to brand Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini condemned the action, saying "putting armed forces of the UN member countries on the list of terrorist groups is a strange and unprecedented act which lacks any value or credit."

Washington, however, has accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran has denied the US charges and insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.