Angry US levels fabricated accusations against Iran

Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah Movement Seyed Hassan Nasrallah dismissed the recent allegations raised by the US against Iran, and said Washington was angry at Tehran for rejecting the White House's demand for setting up a direct military hotline with the US."Rejection of the US demand to set up a direct hotline by Iran made the US angry and caused it to plot a new conspiracy against Iran in the region," Nasrallah said in an interview with al-Manar tv on Monday. After some US media outlets recently quoted an unidentified US defense official as saying that the US was considering setting up a direct military hotline with Iran, Iran's top military commanders quickly rejected the offer, arguing that the offer is basically wrong because the region's affairs and security are not at all related to the Americans who have travelled half the world to reach the Persian Gulf. Nasrallah said that the US has always sought to establish direct contacts with Tehran and have always been denied by Tehran. After Iran rejected their demand they resorted to different plots against the country like imposition of more sanctions and the recent allegations that Iran has plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Nasrallah added. He said the United States was angry to see Iran defied its call adamantly, and thus, resorted to its new plot in a bid to pressure Iran into giving up resistance against Washington. His remarks alluded to the United States' recent accusation that Iran plotted to assassinate a Saudi envoy to Washington. On October 11, the US alleged that Iran had attempted to hire a Mexican drug gang to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel Al-Jubeir. Two men were charged in New York federal court three weeks ago in the alleged plot. Manssor Arbabsiar is a 56-year-old naturalized US citizen. In May 2011, the US criminal complaint says, he approached someone he believed to be a member of the vicious Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, for help with an attack on the Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir. The man he approached turned out to be an informant for US drug agents, it says. The US administration charges that Arbabsiar had been told by his cousin Abdul Reza Shahlai to recruit a drug trafficker for a hitman job. After the US raised the accusation against Iran, the White House asked its European allies to intensify sanctions against Iran. Tehran has repeatedly rejected the accusation as "baseless" and "a fabricated scenario".On Thursday, Iran's Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi rebutted the US claims point by point, and stressed that Iran doesn't need to resort to such terror plots and it would not benefit from killing a Saudi diplomat. He mocked the US claims, saying the accusation reeked of "stupidity" and detailed incredibly unprofessional tradecraft. Moslehi said the US allegations - involving an Iranian-American used car salesman trying to contract Mexican gangsters to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington - were "too cheap to believe." "The initial reaction to this claim by our intelligence officers was genuine surprise at the abundance of stupidity evident in this scenario," he said. Moslehi said even the weakest intelligence agencies in the world wouldn't hire a man with Arbabsiar's background let alone assign him to an operation on US soil. The intelligence minister said Arbabsiar, who acquired US citizenship eight months ago, likely agreed to cooperate with American intelligence agencies in return for his residency permit.