Iran's Ahmadinejad doubts Sept. 11 attack toll

By Robin Pomeroy and Ramin Mostafavi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday the September 11, 2001 attacks were exaggerated in a fresh broadside at the United States just days after President Barack Obama voiced willingness to talk to Iran.

Well-known for his anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric, the hardline populist Ahmadinejad also repeated his denial of the Nazi Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed.

Ahmadinejad said the September 11 attacks with hijacked airliners on New York and Washington D.C. had been trumped up as an excuse for the United States to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Speaking at a Tehran conference, Ahmadinejad said there was no evidence that the death toll at New York's World Trade Centre, destroyed in the attacks, was as high as reported and said "Zionists" had been tipped off in advance.

"What was the story of September 11? During five to six days, and with the aid of the media, they created and prepared public opinion so that everyone considered an attack on Afghanistan and Iraq as (their) right," he said in a televised speech.

No "Zionists" were killed in the World Trade Centre, according to Ahmadinejad, because "one day earlier they were told not go to their workplace."

"They announced that 3,000 people were killed in this incident, but there were no reports that reveal their names. Maybe you saw that, but I did not," he told a gathering of the Iranian news media.

There is a published list of September 11 dead from more than 90 countries available online.