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/ 2 June 2008

Ahmadinejad says Israel will ‘disappear’

Iran’s president said on Monday Israel would soon disappear off the map and that the ”satanic power” of the United States faced destruction, in his latest verbal attack on the Islamic Republic’s arch-foes. Opposition to Israel is a fundamental principle in Shi’ite Muslim Iran, which backs Palestinian militants opposed to peace.

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/ 2 May 2008

Top cleric vows crushing response if Iran attacked

A top cleric on Friday vowed that Iran would deal a knock-out blow to what he called maniacs in the United States and Israel if they ever attacked the Islamic republic. ”If maniacs in Washington or Tel Aviv seek to take action, the Iranian nation will slap them so hard they will not get off the floor,” hard-line cleric Ahmad Khatami said.

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/ 26 April 2008

Iran’s conservatives head for crushing poll win

Iranian conservatives were on Saturday heading for a crushing victory in parliamentary elections over reformists who were sidelined by mass pre-vote disqualifications, partial results showed. Eighty-two seats in the 290 seat Parliament were at stake in the run-off voting on Saturday after the first round on March 14 left conservatives assured of taking a majority in the next Parliament.

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/ 16 April 2008

Iran president casts doubt on ‘suspect’ 9/11

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday reaffirmed his doubts about the accepted version of the September 11 2001 attacks on the United States, describing the strikes as a ”suspect event”. ”Four or five years ago a suspect event took place in New York,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to a public rally in the holy city of Qom.

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/ 15 April 2008

Iran would ‘eliminate Israel’ if attacked

Iran would "eliminate Israel from the global arena" if it was attacked by the Jewish state, the deputy commander of the army warned on Tuesday, amid an intensifying war of words. "We are not worried by Israeli manoeuvres, but if Israel takes such action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will eliminate it from the global arena," Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said.

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/ 13 April 2008

Iran media say mosque blast was not an attack

A blast in a mosque in southern Iran that killed at least 10 people on Saturday was not an attack and was probably caused by negligence, Iranian media on Sunday quoted a police official as saying. Iranian news agencies had reported that a bomb exploded in a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz, also wounding more than 160 people.

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/ 28 March 2008

Iran condemns ‘heinous’ Dutch Qur’an film

Iran said a film by a Dutch lawmaker that accuses the Qur’an of inciting violence was ”heinous” and called on European governments to block any further showing, Iran’s official news agency reported on Friday. The film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders was posted on Thursday on his Freedom Party’ website, which crashed soon afterwards.

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/ 15 March 2008

Iran counts votes as US decries results

Iran began counting votes on Saturday that are likely to keep conservatives in control of Parliament after many opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were blocked from standing in the election. The United States, at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear programme, said any result was ”cooked”.