News

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has again managed to steal the global spotlight, after levelling a series of rhetorical attacks on the US and Israel - the "Zionist entity" in his words - during an address to the UN General Assembly.

Specifically, he told world leaders on Thursday that the "majority of the American people, as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree" that "some segments within the US government orchestrated" the September 11, 2001, attacks in order to "reverse the declining American economy" and to justify US military operations in the Middle East to "save the Zionist regime".

Western diplomats, including the US, Canada and the 27-member EU bloc, walked out during the tirade. PJ Crowley, the US assistant secretary of state, told Al Jazeera that the statement was "totally outrageous".

But, for better or worse, significant segments of the world's population are sympathetic to Ahmadinejad's "conspiratorial" view of the 9/11 attacks which killed about 3,000 people.