December 21, 2001	Friday	Shawwal 5, 1422

DUBAI, Dec 20: Iran supports terrorism in the Middle East, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice charged in comments published on Thursday, blaming Tehran for the 1996 murder of 19 Americans in Saudi Arabia.

She told Al-Hayat newspaper that the United States had “a major problem” with Iran over its “support for terrorist activities against the United States in the Middle East”.

“This Iranian support for terrorism has left American victims,” Rice said.

As the Pentagon wraps up its “anti-terror war” in Afghanistan, she renewed US charges that Iran was behind the blowing up of a US military housing complex in the eastern Saudi city of Khobar, near Dhahran, at the end of June 1996.

“When we questioned those who carried out the explosion in the Khobar complex, they clearly mentioned training and finance provided by Iran,” she she told the Arabic-language daily.—AFP