Tehran claims Britain behind bombings in Ahvaz
Iran directly accused Britain of of equipping and directing those behind a twin bomb attack in the oil city of Ahvaz that killed eight people and wounded dozens more.Britain immediately dismissed the allegations which come amid a wider deterioration of relations between Tehran and London over Iran's nuclear programme as "completely without foundation".
"The trace of Iraq's occupiers in the Ahvaz crimes are clear, and they must take responsibility," hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Iranian media on Wednesday.
Eight people died and 46 others wounded in Tuesday's attacks in the restive southwestern Iranian city situated close to the border with British-controlled southern Iraq. A visit to Ahvaz that day by Ahmadinejad had been cancelled at the last moment because of bad weather.
"We have information showing that British soldiers in Iraq equip these elements and draw up their missions," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA. "It is not necessary to point out that the members of this group are based in London," he added, apparently referring to the Britain-based Popular Democratic Front of Ahvazi Arabs.
In London, the Foreign Office denied the charges.
"We reject these allegations from Mottaki," a spokesman told AFP. "Any linkage between HMG (Her Majesty's Government) and these terrorist attacks is completely without foundation."
Ahvaz has been hit by a wave of insecurity over the past year. These include ethnic riots in April and a string of car bombings prior to the June presidential election in which Ahmadinejad scored a shock victory.
In October another double bombing in Ahvaz killed six people and wounded more than 100. Several pipelines have also been hit by blasts in recent months, with sabotage reportedly suspected in at least one of those incidents.
After the October blasts, Mottaki also said the clerical regime had proof of British meddling. Several officials in Tehran have also alleged that Britain and the United States were seeking to destabilise the Islamic republic by supporting ethnic minority separatists.
Arabs are said to represent three percent of Iran's population of 69 million, who are mainly Farsi speaking, but they are believed to make up close to 50 percent of oil-rich Khuzestan's population.
"Britain must respond to the doubts of Iranians concerning the events in Ahvaz and the terrorist attacks in Khuzestan," Mottaki was also quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
On Tuesday, government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham blamed "international terrorists" and said Ahmadinejad had ordered the intelligence and foreign ministries "to probe the role of foreign hands in this incident."
Source : here
posted by _H_ at 12:11 am
4 Comments:
Note I am obviously not stating this story is true (or not true)
I am simply posting it as found in the Turkish press.
This is not the first time Iran has accused the UK of terrorism and of course the UK has claimed Iran has been behind terrorism in Iraq saying explosives for IE D's were coming from Iran. (the British government has since withdrawn such claims)
Tit for tat ? .... who knows
These bombings have MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN written all over them. Iran supported insurgents in Iraq, gave them the technology and information they needed to kill British troops so Britain responds in kind.
This is text book stuff, page 74 paragraph 2 of the manual to be exact.
It was meant as a warning to Ahmadinejad, he was meant to be nearer the bang, so likely the warning wasn't heeded. Paragraph 3 it is then.
It sounds belieavable to me. Supporting terorist groups in order to destabilize a country wouldn't be anything new.
I have to say myself that it does seem that at least some elements in this story may be true.
I have no evidence at all to say that it is true, so I can only go by what I feel and what history has shown us and both of these tell me that this is more plausible than people might think.
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