The Iranian president warned Friday the country's opposition against straying from the path of the founder of the 1979 revolution and slammed Israel for a deadly raid this week on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke before hundreds of thousands gathered at the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the surrounding grounds in southern Tehran for a ceremony marking his death 21 years ago. The Khomeini-led revolution toppled the US-backed shah and brought hardliners to power in 1979. “Those who deviate from the Imam's path will be banished by the people,” Ahmadinejad said. He reiterated Friday that the election was “100 percent free” and added he is “bound by duty to protect the people's vote.” The annual commemoration of Khomeini's death is part mournful ceremony, part political rally for the base that sustains Iran's hardliners amid rising dissatisfaction with inflation, unemployment, social constraints - and an opposition movement that has persisted despite the crackdown. Ahmadinejad, known for his anti-Israeli rhetoric, used the podium at the shrine grounds Friday to blast Israel's commando raid on the international flotilla off Gaza's shores, calling it “barbaric” and urging the dismantling of the “Zionist regime.” “They have lost their self-control and ability to think,” he said of the Israeli raid that killed nine activists on the Turkish flagship in the flotilla Monday. “Thousands such freedom flotillas across the world will sail out with freedom fighters, to scrap the Zionist rule and bring peace and freedom to all mankind,” added Ahmadinejad. Iran's supreme leader and Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also criticized the raid as a “mistake” that “showed how barbaric the Zionists are.” Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters in Iran, also indirectly criticized opposition leaders, saying that some who revered the late Khomeini now “speak differently” than before. He also warned the opposition to carefully examine what he said was support that comes from “foreign enemies of Iran, enemies of the Imam.” Khomeini's grandson took the stage as he does every year on the anniversary, but this time his speech was repeatedly interrupted by anti-opposition chants from Ahmadinejad supporters. The chanting was apparently a jab at Hassan Khomeini's perceived support for opposition leaders.
