Eight people were killed in a double bomb attack on Tuesday in the restive southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz, where a scheduled visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been cancelled at the last minute.
Official media said a first bomb in Ahvaz — dominated by ethnic minority Arabs and capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province — exploded in front of a privately-run bank and a second in front of a government office for natural resources.
The latest toll was eight dead and 46 injured, local hospital director Mansoor Soltanzadeh said.
“The president had been scheduled to give a speech this morning in Ahvaz, although the bombs did not explode in the same place where the speech was scheduled to have been delivered,” said an aide to the president.
“President Ahmadinejad’s visit to the province was cancelled yesterday [Monday] afternoon because of bad weather.”
Situated close to the border with British-controlled southern Iraq, Ahvaz has been hit by a wave of deadly unrest over the past year, including ethnic riots in April 2005 and a string of car bombings prior to Iran’s presidential election last June when Ahmadinejad scord a shock victory.
In October another double bombing in Ahvaz killed six people and wounded more than 100, while at the same time several pipeline blasts were reported with sabotage reportedly suspected in at least one of those incidents.
“We think this is by the the same movements who were behind the previous incidents. Most of them had been arrested but there were a few on the run,” said Ahvaz governor Mohammad Jafar Sarami.
“President Ahmadinejad was to travel around helicopter, but there is bad weather so the trip was cancelled,” he said in a telephone interview, but cautioned the blasts may not have been “completely related” to the planned trip by the hardline president.
“They are home-made bombs,” a police official told state television, as state television carried images of emergency workers scouring the burned bank.
Iran has in the past pointed the finger of blame at Britain for the unrest, accusing British forces based across the border in Iraq for backing ethnic Arab separatists.
Arabs are said to represent three percent of Iran’s population of 69-million, who are mainly Farsi speaking, but are believed to make up close to 50% of Khuzestan’s population.
The Khuzestan region was devastated during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and 1988, and many residents of the area have complained of continued poverty and a lack of job opportunities.
The rioting last April was also sparked by a forged official letter saying Tehran wanted to change the province’s ethnic makeup.
In October 2005, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the clerical regime had proof of British meddling in the area.
“The information shows that Britain is seeking to create insecurity in our country by interfering in our internal affairs,” Mottaki said at the time, also warning that the consequences “could be worrying for the British”.
Britain has consistently rejected the allegations, which were part of a wider deterioration of relations between Tehran and London over alleged Iranian meddling in Iraq and the Islamic republic’s disputed nuclear programme. – AFP