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View Full Version : Iran Accuses UK of Arming Ahvaz Bombers



sonz
01-26-2006, 12:16 PM
TEHRAN, January 25, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Iran on Wednesday, January 26, accused the British military of cooperating with bombers who killed eight people in southwest Iran, a claim Britain described as "ludicrous."

"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.

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 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been cancelled at the last moment because of bad weather.

"The trace of Iraq's occupiers in the Ahvaz crimes are clear, and they must take responsibility," Ahmadinejad told Iranian media in statements carried by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A little-known group campaigning for independence for Iran's Arab minority claimed responsibility in a Web statement for Tuesday's attacks.

"Our heroes ... in the military wing of The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz attacked and destroyed the dens of the occupying enemy," the statement said.

Only about 3 percent of Iran's 69 million people are Arabs but authorities are very sensitive about protests and discontent in the southwestern Arab territories, home to Iran's biggest oil fields.

Iran sits on the world's second-biggest crude reserves.

"Ludicrous"

Britain rebuffed the accusation in unusually blunt language and condemned the attacks.

"The Iranian government's suggestion ... is obviously ludicrous and deserves to be treated with scorn by the whole international community," said a spokesman in Prime Minister Tony Blair's office, Reuters reported.

"Putting the blame on us rather than on the terrorists responsible underlines why there is such widespread international concern about this Iranian government, especially after its repugnant statements on Israel and the Holocaust."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be "wiped off the map" and rejects the Holocaust -- the killing of Jews by the Nazis and their allies between 1933 and 1945 -- as a myth.

Ahvaz has been tense since April, when five people died in protests sparked by rumors the government was considering settling non-Arabs in southwest Iran to dilute Arab influence there.

Seven people were killed in bombings in June and six died in a blast in October. Some minor oil facilities were bombed in September.

After the October blasts, Mottaki also said the regime had proof of British meddling.
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