June 17, 2016
Iran on Monday condemned the mass killings at a gay nightclub in Florida as an “evil … terrorist attack.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its principled policy of condemning terrorism and its strong will to seriously confront this evil phenomenon, condemns the recent terrorist attack in Orlando,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossain Jaberi-Ansari said of the deadliest mass shooting in US history.
He did not mention that the attack came in a gay bar.
The Islamic Republic routinely denounces terrorist attacks in the West in an apparent effort to provide “proof” that it does not engage in terrorism.
The assailant, Omar Mateen, 29, a US-born citizen of Afghan parentage, reportedly made a 911 call during the massacre pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, which itself claimed responsibility for the attack, calling Mateen “one of the soldiers of the caliphate.”
