Ahmadinejad denounces Israel as 'origin of all wars, terror'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued to deliver incendiary rhetoric against Israel yesterday, the second and final day of a Palestinian solidarity conference in Tehran.

It is "well-known for all that the Zionist regime's mission is threat, violence and beating [the] drums of war," Ahmadinejad said, according to a translation released by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

The International Conference on National and Islamic Solidarity for Future of Palestine included representatives of the most influential Palestinian militant factions, including Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal, Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Shallah and Ahmed Jibril, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

"Supporters of the Zionist regime who are shouting slogans of human rights and anti-terrorism support systematic crimes of the occupying regime," Ahmadinejad said, adding that "everybody knows that the regime is seeking hegemony over the world."

Israel is the "origin of all the wars, genocide, terror and crimes against humanity," he said, and a "racist group not respecting the human principles," IRNA reported.

"With God's grace and thanks to the Palestinian resistance, the occupying Zionist regime has lost its raison d'etre," Ahmadinejad said. "The only way to confront them is through the Palestinian youths' resistance, and that of the regional nations."

Meanwhile, a leading commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards issued a stern warning to Europe while addressing Basij militiamen in the southeastern city of Kerman.

"Iran sits on 50 percent of the world's energy [supplies] and if it wants, Europe will spend the winter in a chill," Hossein Salami said, according to the Fars News Agency.

Salami also issued a warning against Iran's regional enemies. "Our missiles are now able to target any spot in which the conspirators are in, and the country is making advances in all fields," he said.