Addressing worshippers at the site of Tehran University, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the powerful Guardian Council, the unelected constitutional watchdog, said, “At times they blame this [London bombings] as the work of Al’Qaeda. Al’Qaeda means [United States President George W.] Bush and [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair who were the mothers of Al’Qaeda and brought to life this illegitimate child”.

“There exists the possibility that the British government carried out this work, like the possibility [of American involvement] in the September 11 affair, since they themselves stand to benefit the most”, Jannati said.

Jannati is a close confidant of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s newly-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is widely seen as Jannati’s protégé.

The July 7 multiple bombings in London’s underground railways and a city bus left at least 54 people dead and close to 1,000 people injured.

“The British government stood to gain the most from the London bombings, so that they could tell their people not to protest against their war on terrorism”, the senior ayatollah said.

Jannati’s comments echoed a similar speech at last week’s Friday prayers’ sermon by Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani, who blamed the bombings on the West.

The Organisation of al-Qaeda's Jihad in Europe, an al-Qaeda offshoot, claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Emami-Kashani said that the West, in particular the United States and Israel, carried the responsibility. “You who speak of al-Qaeda’s Islamic and terrorist nature, have you forgotten who are the mother and father of al-Qaeda”, the senior cleric questioned, in an address to the United Kingdom and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair. “Al-Qaeda’s father is in the White House and its mother is despotic Israel”.