TEHRAN, 19 October 2005 — Iranian police said yesterday they defused a powerful bomb planted under a bridge in the southwestern city of Ahvaz just days after a double bomb attack there killed six people and injured more than 100.
The country’s judiciary maintained that “foreign states” were involved in the unrest, after senior officials pointed the finger at British troops based across the border in Iraq. Police told state television they acted on a tip-off from local residents who spotted a suspicious package under a busy bridge in the city, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province and dominated by ethnic minority Arabs.
The report said the package — wired up and containing eight anti-personnel mines, around a kilogram of TNT, one stun grenade and a large number of fuses — was successfully defused late on Monday.
Khuzestan’s deputy governor general in charge of security affairs, Gholam Reza Shariati, and other officials also told the student news agency ISNA that the bomb was clearly aimed at destroying Kianpars bridge, which links the east and west of Ahvaz city.
Two bombs exploded outside a crowded market late Saturday in Ahvaz. Funerals of the victims were held on Monday, but the death toll could still rise given that several of those injured remain in critical condition.
Iran’s leading newspapers yesterday called on the government to cut diplomatic ties with Britain after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused London of being behind the bombings. Britain has denied any link with the bombings as well as a series of attacks earlier this year in Khuzestan province, the heart of Iran’s oil industry, which borders southern Iraq.
Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei told the official IRNA news agency that more than 20 suspects had been arrested. But it was not clear if the arrests were related to the Oct. 15 blasts or previous bombings and unrest in Khuzestan this year.
Kayhan, one of Iran’s four leading hard-line newspapers, called on the government to reconsider its ties with London. “Tolerating imposed crisis is against our dignity,” Kayhan said in an editorial. “We should start with mild reactions like closing the British Embassy and eventually sever the ties.”
The hard-line Siyasat-e-Rouz newspaper also accused Britain of masterminding the bombings. “Severing ties is the minimum we can do to prevent Britain’s interference in Iran.”
