Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Mehr: Investigations Are Over

Ahmadinejad Takes Charge of Shiraz Explosion Case


Though official and state-owned news agencies in Iran insist that Saturday night's explosion in ‎shiraz was "not a terrorist attack," an "informed official" said that a bomb was responsible for the ‎explosion and that the president was unhappy that his the mosque's officials (which are affiliated ‎with him) are blamed for the explosion. ‎

Yesterday, an informed official working at the Shiraz governor's office told the reporter of "news ‎website Iran" that "all experts have announced that the explosion was caused by a bomb and the ‎party responsible for this attack has been identified." This informed official added, "high ‎government officials in Shiraz are about to be removed from their posts" because "they had ‎blamed the mosque's officials for the explosion without consulting the president." ‎

In a different opinion about the source of the explosion, deputy security chief at the Ministry of ‎Interior noted, "So far no evidence has been found regarding a planned detonation or preplanned ‎attack in the Shiraz explosion." Yesterday, Fars news agency quoted an informed official that ‎‎"the incident was caused by the presence of a weapons cache at the location left over from the ‎Holy War exhibit," and therefore, it is pointless to speak of a terrorist attack. Similarly, the ‎deputy of operations of the police told Fars, "Expert examinations of the scene of the event ‎refutes the possibility of a premeditated or bombing attack." ‎

Mehr news agency also reported that investigations were completed: "The latest expert ‎examinations indicate that the Shiraz explosion was due to the presence of display military ‎material and any kind of terrorist attack originating inside or outside Iran is out of the question."

These opinions are expressed while officials from the Hosseiniyeh (religious center) insist that ‎the dead and wounded were victims of a terrorist attack. In an interview conducted at 11 p.m. ‎Saturday night, Anjavinejad, head of the mosque where the incident took place, insisted that the ‎attacked was a "terrorist" one and referred to the dead in the incident as "martyrs." ‎

On the other hand, whereas the Fars news agency refutes any possibility of a Wahhabi ‎involvement in the explosion, the website Farda referred to the Saudi Arabia-based Internet news ‎source Ilaf and reported, "A Wahhabi group was responsible for the explosion in Shiraz." ‎Shahab News has also reported that "Wahhabi's" were involved in the explosion in Shiraz. ‎

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