Arson attack in Iran leaves 5 more dead
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President seeks to pin blame on 'foreign enemies'
Iran suffered a further bout of violence in the run-up to next week's presidential elections when five people were killed and dozens more injured today in an arson attack in the border town where 25 people died last week in a mosque bombing.
State media said the incident targeted the Mehr Financial and Credit institute in Zahedan, a largely Sunni Muslim town near the eastern border with Pakistan. Iran partially closed the border.
News of the latest violence coincided with reports of arrests over last Thursday's suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in Zahedan. Both it and a small bomb found on an internal flight to Tehran at the weekend have been blamed on Iran's foreign enemies by state media. Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran's "supreme leader", warned yesterday of an "enemies' conspiracy ? trying to harm national unity," the Irna news agency reported.
Analysts suspect that whoever is behind these incidents is being exploited by supporters of the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is being challenged in the 12 June vote by three other candidates, two of them reformers seeking improved relations with the west and blaming the incumbent for the country's current isolation.
Ahmadinejad told a rally that if he was re-elected he would continue his tough talk. "We are sorry that certain people inside the country have joined the Zionists in opposing those of us calling the Zionists liars, killers of children and murderers," he said. Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Radan, deputy commander of Iran's security forces, said that "a number of individuals who intended to create insecurity" in Zahedan had been detained.
Zahedan is the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan province, home to Iran's mostly Sunni ethnic Baluchis. Near Pakistan, the region sees frequent clashes between security forces and smugglers and bandits.
Three men convicted of involvement in the mosque bombing, the deadliest such incident in Iran since the eight-year war with Iraq, were publicly hanged on Saturday. A Sunni opposition group named Jundullah (God's soldiers), which Iran says is part of al-Qaida and backed by the US, claimed responsibility for the mosque bombing.
Manuchehr Mottaki, Iran's foreign minister, said Jundullah was linked to "foreign forces" in Afghanistan. Jundullah says it fights for the rights of Iran's Sunnis and has claimed responsibility for a dozen terrorist attacks in Iran.
The recent incidents are reminiscent of a similar outbreak of violence days before Iran's last presidential election, in 2005, which brought Ahmadinejad to power. Bombs then hit Tehran and the south-western city of Ahvaz, which has a sizable Arab minority, killing eight people and wounding scores more.
Israel warned meanwhile that Iran could have enough fissile material for its first nuclear bomb by the end of this year. Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, head of the research division of Israel's military intelligence, made the remarks to a foreign affairs committee of Israel's parliament.
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