“Iran strongly supports the democratic process and congratulates the Iraqi people for having found the way to democracy,” Larijani said when he met a group of MPs at the start of a visit to Baghdad.

“Iraq’s people supports parliament because it was elected and not appointed as in Saddam Hussein’s time, which is still the case in other parliaments of the region,” he said, according to an MP who took part but declined to be named.

Larijani is to visit the shrine of Imam Ali in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, during a four-day stay in Iraq.

He slammed “certain countries which support terrorism with violent attacks in Iraq under the pretext of fighting the Americans when in fact they love them,” Larijani said, in apparent reference to Saudi Arabia.

“We are sorry for the latest attacks and the Iraqi people will cut off the hands of terrorists and occupiers,” he said.

The US military which toppled Saddam’s dictatorship in a 2003 invasion has accused Iran of involvement in many attacks, while the Baghdad government has charged Syria with giving safe haven to insurgents.

Four bomb attacks on government buildings in Baghdad cost more than 250 lives in August and October.