ISIL Hajj flag hoisting had Saudi nod: Iran MP

"Saudi Arabia has been instrumental in creating and financing the ISIL and this move (flag hoisting) has not been done without their (Saudi authorities) knowledge," Hossein Sobhani-Nia, a member of Iranian Majlis Presiding Board, said on Tuesday.
 
He added that the Saudi television aired footage of the ISIL flag on the Arafat Plain, a move showing that Riyadh has no intention to counter the terrorist groups.
 
    “Therefore, Saudi Arabia has no plan for dealing with this grouplet and is making efforts to strengthen the Salafi and Takfiri movements based in Saudi Arabia,” the Iranian legislator added.
 
He pointed to the so-called US-led coalition to fight the ISIL terrorists operating in Syria and said, “These countries have no will to counter the ISIL because they, themselves, have created the ISIL and supported it and they now seek to hold this grouplet as a pressure lever in the [Middle East] region.”
 
Sobhani-Nia noted that Saudi Arabia has always provided terrorist groups and individuals such as al-Qaeda's slain leader Osama bin Laden with financial and political aid.
 
Since September 22, the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar and Jordan, have been conducting airstrikes against the ISIL inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate.
 
This is while the US and some of its Western and regional allies have been supporting the militants operating to topple the government in Syria since March 2011.