Nobody taking responsibility yet. I could be mistaken and out of touch, but I think these are a first. There was a lot of talk about Team Bush attacking Iran in June: is this an opening salvo by "covert ops"? Or homegrown Iranian discontent?
Bombs kill 5, hurt 89 in Iran oil town before poll
By Alistair Lyon | Sun Jun 12, 2005 06:59 AM ET
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Four bomb blasts killed at least five people and wounded 89 in a southwestern oil town on Sunday, five days before Iran's presidential election.
The bombs were aimed at state buildings in Ahvaz, capital of the partly Arabic-speaking province of Khuzestan, where five people were killed in ethnic unrest in April.
Gholamreza Shariati, deputy governor of Khuzestan, told Reuters women and children were among the casualties of the morning bombings spread over two hours.
State television quoted hospital officials as saying eight people had been killed, four of them women, and 30 wounded.
The bombs targeted the governor's office in the town, 550 km (340 miles) southwest of Tehran, as well as two local government departments and a housing complex for state media employees.
A pool of blood stained the floor of a waiting room at the governor's office, where the explosion had wrecked ceilings, broken windows and destroyed a car outside, TV footage showed.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. The Popular Democratic Front of Ahvaz, which is campaigning for an independent Khuzestan, denied responsibility.
Shariati said the bombings were aimed at disrupting the election, in which opinion polls tip Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to regain the post he held from 1989-97.
"Those behind the blasts want to endanger the country's sovereignty ahead of the elections," Shariati told state television. "They want to harm the system, but the people's desire to vote will become stronger in such conditions."
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[zombienote: Meanwhile in what is completely unrelated news...from the "After all, they would know" file:]
US dismisses Iran election as rigged
Yahoo! News |
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has not waited for the first ballot to be cast before dismissing Iran's presidential election as rigged and exhorting the Iranian people to rise up for democratic reform.
US officials took no pains to hide their concern after Iran's hardline clerical regime barred more than 1,000 hopefuls from next Friday's poll and narrowed the field to a handful of mostly conservative candidates.
"There are questions about an election where it's the mullahs, the unelected few, who are really the ones that make the decision about who can actually run," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.
Iran, a member of
President George W. Bush's famous "axis of evil," has long been in the US cross-hairs for its alleged support of terrorism and suspected plans to develop nuclear weapons.
But in recent months the Bush administration has stepped up its rhetoric over Iran's domestic situation, lambasting the mullahs as unyielding despots and coming close to advocating regime change.
Bush raised eyebrows in February when he used his State of the Union address to address a message directly to the Iranian people: "As you stand for your own liberty, America stands with you."
Having cut off diplomatic relations and virtually all economic ties since the US hostage crisis in Tehran a quarter century ago, the Americans have little leverage with the Iranian government.
But US officials said they were moving quietly since late last year to provide some 4.5 million dollars in aid to opposition and pro-democracy groups outside Iran while boosting broadcasts into the country.
A million dollars was given to a US-based human rights group compiling a data base on abuses in Iran. Another 500,000 dollars for data gathering was channeled through the National Endowment for Democracy set up by Congress.
The US government has authorized a further three million dollars to spread the word and is currently reviewing proposals submitted by dozens of groups, officials said.
Gregg Sullivan, spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the United States was taking care not to establish direct links with any particular people or organizations inside the Islamic Republic.
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