Tehran (Iran), Mar.7 (ANI):The official version of the September 11 attacks on the United States is a “big lie” that was used by Washington as an excuse to launch the war on terror, state media quoted Iran President Mohammad Ahmadinejad, as saying.

Addressing Intelligence Ministry staff, Ahmadnejad said: “September 11 was a big lie and a pretext for the war on terror and a prelude to invading Afghanistan.”

He called the attacks a “complicated intelligence scenario and act.”

The Iranian president has questioned the official US version of the September 11 attacks before, but this is the first time he ventured to label it a “big lie.”

In 2007, New York officials rejected Ahmadinejad’s request to visit the World Trade Center site while he was in the city for a UN meeting.

The president also sparked an uproar when he said during a lecture in New York that the causes and conditions that led to the attacks, as well as who orchestrated them, still need to be examined.

At the time, he also told Iranian state TV the attacks were “a result of mismanaging and inhumane managing of the world by the U.S,” and that Washington was using September 11 as an excuse to attack others.

He has also questioned the September 11 death toll of around 3,000, claiming the Americans never published the victims’ names. (ANI)