BEHESHT-E-ZAHRA, Iran?Iran’s supreme leader accused the United States on Tuesday of “massacring” innocent Afghans during its war on terrorism, and said Iran was ready to fight if attacked.

Addressing thousands of people on the 13th anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the United States launched the war in Afghanistan to get rid of al Qaeda, but instead massacred civilians.

“In Afghanistan, in the poor and wronged country of Afghanistan, they entered the arena under the guise of combating a group or even a few individuals. They did not get their hands on those individuals, but they massacred many innocent people, bombarded them, killed them,” Khamenei said.

Amid chants of “Death to America,” on Tuesday, Khamenei called the United States “the most hated regime in the world.”