Obama and Ahmadinejad
Obama and AhmadinejadIsrael news photo montage

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken his anti-American rhetoric further than it has gone before, cursing the US leadership Sunday with a call for it to be 'buried.'

"May the undertaker bury you, your table and your body, which has soiled the world," he said. The Associated Press explained that in Iran, this phrase is “reserved for hated enemies.”

The crass insult was reportedly issued in response to statements from Washington that the military option against Iran is “still on the table.”

Ahmadinejad's audience consisted of military men and clerics in the town of Hashtgerd, near Teheran. They reportedly “chuckled” at the slur and applauded. The speech was broadcast on both state television and the official English-language Press TV, but AP said that the latter did not include the insult in its simultaneous translation.

Ahmadinejad also questioned who was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, as he did in his recent United Nations General Assembly speech. He said the attacks gave Washington a pretext for seeking to dominate the Middle East and plunder its oil wealth.

Ahmadinejad's curse is reminiscent of the famous phrase “We will bury you” uttered by the President of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khruschev, at a reception for Western Ambassadors in Moscow on November 18, 1956.

The stepped-up rhetoric by Ahmadinejad could be a reflection of Iranian frustration following the Stuxnet virus attack on its nuclear facilities.