TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says new US President Barack Obama’s fate will be worse than George Bush’s if he doesn’t bring fundamental changes to American foreign policy.
Addressing thousands of people in the central Iranian city of Yazd yesterday, Ahmadinejad didn’t mention Obama by name but said a “humiliating” fate awaited American leaders if they tried to pursue Bush’s policies.
Ahmadinejad on Tuesday said Iran is waiting to see “real changes” in US foreign policy and warned that Tehran-Washington ties won’t improve if no fundamental changes were introduced to US policies. Obama has pledged to rethink Washington’s relations with Tehran.
Meanwhile, an explosion at a mosque in a volatile area of eastern Iran yesterday caused minor damage but no casualties, Iranian news agencies reported. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast in Al-Ghadir Mosque in the city of Zahedan near Pakistan.
The semi-official Fars News Agency said a sound bomb had exploded. The Iranian ISNA news agency said a gas canister had caused the blast. Both were quoting police officials.
“The aim of this bombing was to create fear,” Fars quoted a local police official, Salah Asgarpour, as saying. ISNA quoted another police official, who gave only his family name, Sajedinia, as saying: “At 11:45 a.m. a gas canister in the mosque’s kitchen exploded.” Four members of the security forces were killed in an attack by rebels in the same region less than a week ago, Iranian state media said.
Zahedan is capital of Sistan-Balochistan province, where Iranian security forces often clash with heavily armed drugs smugglers and bandits. The province is home to mostly Sunni ethnic Balochis.
In December, Iran said the Sunni rebel group Jundollah had killed 16 police hostages who were abducted from a checkpoint in Sistan-Balochistan in June.
Tehran has said Jundollah is part of the Al-Qaeda network and has also accused the United States and Britain of backing the group.
