TEHRAN, May 27: Iran's supreme leader has declared that Friday will be a day of mourning to protest the profanation by US soldiers of holy sites in Iraq and atrocities committed there.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the "sanctity of the holy mosque of Sahleh and the sacred mausoleum of the prince of the faithful, Imam Ali" in Najaf "has again been treated with contempt in recent days, and the forces of occupation have again attacked them".

Ayatollah Khamenei's remarks, contained in a written message on Thursday to the "great Muslim nation", were apparently a reference to a mortar strike earlier in the week on the shrine of Hazrat Ali.

"Dozens of people have been martyred at the hands of American military forces, and the hands of the aggressor are bathed more than ever in the blood of the oppressed Iraqi nation," Ayatollah Khamenei said.

The Americans "should know that by profaning the holiness of sacred sites in Iraq, by perpetrating atrocities like those at (the infamous prison) at Abu Ghraib, by massacring the Iraqi people, by sexually harassing pious women, by bombing their cities and homes, they are sowing such seeds of hatred in the hearts of the Iraqi nation that they will not be able to feel safe for a long time.

Ayatollah Khamenei called on Muslim governments to oppose the "iniquitous oppression" in Iraq and the Palestinian territories. -AFP