TEHRAN, May 2: A leading Iranian conservative cleric said on Friday the Iraqi people have no other choice but to rise up against occupying US troops and stage suicide attacks to force them out of Iraq.

“The Iraqi people are finally coming to understand that the solution is an uprising, and they have no other choice but to rise up and stage martyrdom operations,” said Ahmad Janati, secretary general of the Guardians Council, in a sermon during Friday prayers.

“This is the only solution; they are learning from the experience of Palestine,” he added.

“What we want from them is unity, taking sanctuary in mosques, following the clerics’ path and making continued efforts to drive the enemy out of Iraq,” he said.

Janati charged that the Americans want to “feed (Iraqis) democracy from their gun points and if they fear from death, they will have to surrender.”

The US has accused Iran of seeking to use Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority to push for an Islamic government and undermine Washington’s plans to instil its brand of democracy.

It has warned Iran against “any outside interference” in Iraq.

Janati, whose country fought a bloody eight-year war against Saddam’s regime in the 1980s, charged that the Iraqis were not any better off now.

“The Iraqi people were released from the claws of one wolf and have been caught by another wolf,” he said.

Janati also lashed out at a ceasefire concluded between US forces and the Iraq-based armed Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen, who have been using Iraqi soil to battle Tehran’s clerical regime for well over a decade.

“The hypocrites — (Tehran’s standard term of abuse for the group) — were servants of Saddam and now have become servants of the Americans”, he said.—AFP