Iran condemns Samarra attack, hits out at US

TEHRAN, June 13 (Reuters) Iran's president condemned the bombing of an important Shi'ite mosque in neighbouring Iraq today, and appeared to blame US forces.

Suspected al Qaeda militants blew up two minarets of a revered mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra, targeting a shrine bombed last year in an attack that sparked a wave of sectarian killing.

Shi'ite Iran often says the US presence in Iraq is fuelling violence there and has called for American troops to leave the country.

State television said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the attack and also referred to ''the occupiers'', code for the United States and other Western powers.

''You, by supporting these acts, make the situation harder for yourselves and don't do something so that no one in our region will give you the slightest help for your withdrawal,'' it quoted him as saying.

The United States, for its part, accuses Iran of fomenting instability in Iraq by backing Shi'ite militants there.

US and Iranian officials met in Baghdad on May 28 to discuss Iraq, the most high-profile meeting between the two countries in almost three decades that both sides later described as positive.

REUTERS SM VC1706