TEHRAN - Iran marked Saturday the 22nd anniversary of the death of the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini, the local satellite Press TV reported.
A large number of mourners and Iranian officials attended a ceremony at Imam Khomeini's mausoleum in the south of Tehran. Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said in the ceremony that Iran throws its weight behind all popular anti-U.S. movements in the region, said the report. "Our stance regarding these public movements is crystal clear. Anywhere there is a popular Islamic and anti-U.S. movement, we support it," Khamenei was quoted as saying.

"However, if we see that a movement is provoked by the U.S. or Zionists, we will not support that movement. We support movements that are against the U.S. and Zionism," said Khamenei.
"Anywhere the U.S. or the Zionist regime (of Israel) is involved... to topple a government or occupy a country, that is the point where we are against it," Press TV quoted him as saying.

Meanwhile, Khamenei praised popular Islamic movements in the Middle East and North Africa. He warned against the U.S. plots to hijack the revolutions and said, "the United States does not do anything in the interests of regional nations. Whatever they have done so far has been against regional nations," according to Press TV. He urged Muslim countries to remain vigilant in the face of the Western plots. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also criticized the U.S. for its plots against the country and called on the Iranian nation to remain vigilant as "the enemy is pressing ahead with its schemes," said the report. Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and the leader of the 1979 Iran's Islamic Revolution which saw the overthrow of the U.S.-backed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. He passed away in 1989. (Xinhua)