Jeremy Corbyn, the recently elected far-left leader of Britain’s Labour Party, reportedly wrote in 2003 that the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US had been “manipulated” to frame Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization in order to facilitate a Western invasion of Afghanistan.

According to the British newspaper the Telegraph, Corbyn wrote in a 2003 article for the socialist Morning Star newspaper that, “Historians will study with interest the news manipulation of the past 18 months.

“After September 11, the claims that bin Laden and al-Qaida had committed the atrocity were quickly and loudly made.

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“This was turned into an attack on the Taliban and then, subtly, into regime change in Afghanistan.”

This is not the first time that the veteran MP, who spent 30 years on the backbenches before being catapulted in the party leadership earlier this month, has come under fire for his comments.

He has previously addressed Palestinian terror group Hamas and Lebanon-based extremists Hezbollah as “friends,” and defended a vicar who was censured by the Anglican church for posting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories online. Corbyn also has publicly endorsed a blanket arms embargo on Israel and the boycott of Israeli universities involved in weapons research.

Corbyn has also been criticized for claiming that it was a “tragedy” that bin Laden had been killed before he could stand trial for the 2001 attacks. Speaking a short while after the 2011 assault on the al-Qaeda leader’s Pakistan hideaway, Corbyn told Iranian television that “no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him and put him on trial, to go through that process,” the Guardian reported.

“This was an assassination attempt, and is yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy,” he said.