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TEHRAN, September 11, 2011 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the United States used the 9/11 attacks as a "game and pretext" to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"September 11 was actually a game designed to influence the emotions of the human community, in order to find a pretext for attacking Islamic regions and invading Iraq and Afghanistan," he was quoted as saying on the website of his office on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

It was not the first time Ahmadinejad has criticised Iran's arch-foe over the attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people, destroyed the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre and plunged the country into an era of wars.

In June, during a counter-terrorism summit in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said that "the American government used the attacks as a pretext to occupy two countries, and kill, injure and displace people in the region."

He also sparked Western fury in September 2010 when in his speech at the United Nations -- four miles (six kilometres) from where the World Trade Center used to be -- he said that "some people within the US government orchestrated the attacks to reverse the declining American economy."

And in March 2010 he called the 9/11 attacks as a "big lie."