Report: Several killed in Iran bomb blast

[IDemo]

Source: Reuters

At least 8 killed, 50 injured in mosque blast, state media reports

updated 1 hour, 21 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran - At least 8 people were killed and 50 injured when a bomb exploded in a mosque in southern Iran on Saturday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"The death toll is expected to rise above eight because some of the injured people are in critical condition," Fars said, without giving a source.

It said the bomb exploded during an address by a cleric in the Shohada mosque in Shiraz city. No further details were immediately available and there was no indication who might be behind the attack.

Iran has suffered from isolated bombings in recent years, largely in the south. Some 65 men were arrested in February and accused of being behind a bombing that killed members of the elite Revolutionary Guards in a southeastern border province, the ISNA news agency said.


Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24084359/

[Joanne98]

1. I didn't know Cheney was in Iran.

[slipslidingaway]

2. Bomb explodes in Iranian mosque, 8 dead: report

Source: Reuters

"At least 8 people were killed and 50 injured when a bomb exploded in a mosque in southern Iran on Saturday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"The death toll is expected to rise above eight because some of the injured people are in critical condition," Fars said, without giving a source.

It said the bomb exploded during an address by a cleric in the Shohada mosque in Shiraz city. No further details were immediately available and there was no indication who might be behind the attack..."



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080412/wl_nm/iran_blast_dc;_ylt=As6wzaaJP84esxN9XVv.zH.s0NUE

[SpikeTss]

3. US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran

That's what came to my mind when I read this story:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/25/wiran25.xml

Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA's classified budget but is now "no great secret", according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.

His claims were backed by Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, who said: "The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime."

Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Teheran has long claimed to detect the hand of both America and Britain in attacks by guerrilla groups on its internal security forces. Last Monday, Iran publicly hanged a man, Nasrollah Shanbe Zehi, for his involvement in a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards in the city of Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan. An unnamed local official told the semi-official Fars news agency that weapons used in the attack were British and US-made."

[leftchick]

5. exactly

this is CIA activity.

[truth2power]

9. Yessiree!! n/t

[KansDem]

14. At least now we know where some of the missing billion$$$ went to (nt)

[annabanana]

6. yeeks. . Nothing in this world is EVER so bad that

this administration can't make it WORSE!

[Keefer]

4. I wonder.

Was Al-Sadr visiting the mosque at the time?

[ohio2007]

7. It was a Shia mosque but al Sadr is in Qom, not Shiraz

Shiraz has minority wahabi and Sunni groups


the mullahs have a captive minority in that part of the country they use as whipping boys and distractions. They sit on the vast oil reserves ;

Baha'is are threatened with death in Shiraz

2008 Friday 04 April

Although according to most reports of international human rights organizations Baha'is social rights are being constantly violated inside Iran, recent reports have emerged that 9 Baha'is residents in Shiraz have been threatened with death and there is a report that shows there was an unsuccessful effort to burn one of these residents by using gasoline.

This report has revealed that on 3/19/2008 unidentified individuals strove to burn one of these residents (who lives in Shiraz) after pouring gasoline on him; but their effort was unsuccessful and they finally escaped. This issue has also been reported to the Ministry of Intelligence and the Police Department of Shiraz.

The following is the text of the report sent by the person who was engulfed earlier today in persecutions directed at Baha'is in Shiraz by a certain group called Unknown Soldiers of Imam Zaman. For the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Province of Fars:

snip
http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/038369.html


The mullahs find plenty of internal spies working for outside forces;
http://www.iranpressnews.com/english/source/038662.html
especially with election time nearing and a restless young college student body population ripe for beat downs

http://english.farsnews.com/imgrep.php?nn=8701220163

and a leader ready to expose spies if his reforms fail to materialize....again...
http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8701230336

[Keefer]

8. It was just my attempt at humor. n/t.

[struggle4progress]

10. Bombing at Mosque in Southern Iran Kills 9 and Injures 105

By NAZILA FATHI
Published: April 13, 2008

TEHRAN — A powerful bomb exploded at a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz Saturday evening, killing at least nine people and injuring 105, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

The bomb exploded at 9 p.m. at the Shohada mosque, where the secretary to the city’s Friday Prayer leader preached every week about the Wahhabi faith, an austere version of Sunni Islam, and Bahaism, a religion the Iranian government condemns, the news agency reported.

The bomb went off in the men’s section and many of the wounded were in critical condition, the news agency added ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/world/middleeast/13shiraz.html?ref=world

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Iran Dismisses Sabotage in Mosque Blast

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian officials on Sunday ruled out an attack as the cause of an explosion that killed 11 people inside a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz.

The explosion ripped through the mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers late Saturday as a cleric delivered his weekly speech against extremist Wahabi beliefs and the outlawed Bahai faith, the semiofficial Fars news agency said.
...
The police chief of the southern Fars Province, Gen. Ali Moayyedi, said he "rejects" the possibility of an intentional bombing and "any sort of insurgency" in the blast.

Moayyedi, in comments carried by state IRNA news agency, said the initial investigation found remnants of ammunition from a military exhibition that was held recently at the mosque.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i5J24QdqRtBHmbb4jztPXyvaAHdQD900TO4O0

[ohio2007]

12. Iran has faced several ethnic and religious insurgencies that have been behind (article)

Bomb Kills 9 at Mosque in Southern Iran

snip
Iran has faced several ethnic and religious insurgencies that have been behind rare but deadly attacks in recent years , though none have amounted to a serious threat to the government.

In February 2007, a car loaded with explosives blew up near a bus carrying members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, killing 11 of them and wounding more than 30 in southeastern Iran. A Sunni militant group that has been blamed for past attacks on Iranian troops claimed responsibility.

Some believe the group, known as Jundallah, is linked to al-Qaida. Jundallah, or God's Brigade, has waged a low-level insurgency in southeastern Iran.

Besides the violence in the southeast, ethnic Arab Sunni militants have been blamed for bombings in the western city of Ahvaz near the border of Iraq , including blasts in 2006 that killed nine people.

The mosque targeted is part of the Rahpouyan-e-Vesal cultural center in Shiraz, about 559 miles south of the capital, Tehran.

Fars said the mosque's cleric gives a weekly speech denouncing the Bahai faith and Wahabism , an austere brand of Sunni Islam practiced mostly in Saudi Arabia. Such speeches are not unusual in Iranian mosques.

The fundamentalist Wahabi strain of Islam considers Shiites heretics and Iran is dominated by Shiite Muslims. Wahabis are suspected of having influence over some militants waging the insurgency in Iraq.

The Bahai faith was founded in the 1860s by a Persian nobleman, Baha'u'llah, who claimed to be a new prophet in the series that included Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Islam considers Muhammad to be the last of the prophets.

Iran had been the cradle of the Bahai faith in the middle of the 19th century. After the 1979 Islamic revolution, the faith was banned and it is not recognized in the Iranian constitution as a religious minority.

Last year, Bahai communities abroad reported that a group of followers were detained in Shiraz while helping poor communities there.


http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation_world/20080412_ap_bombkills9atmosqueinsoutherniran.html

Just a hunch the mullahs got their boogie man set up in time for elections next month.



11 die, 191 wounded in Shiraz blast (Updates)
http://www2.irna.com/en/news/view/line-22/0804134390105922.htm

[Keefer]

13. This just in...

(CNN) -- An explosion in a southern Iranian mosque killed 11 people and wounded 191 after evening prayers Saturday, Iranian media reported.
art.iran.explosion.afp.gi.jpg

Iranians inspect the Shohada Hosseiniyeh mosque after an explosion Saturday.
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While an initial report said a homemade bomb exploded, a local police commander said it appeared to be a case of negligent handling of live munitions inside the mosque.

The local prosecutor and an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman suggested the possibility of sabotage had not been ruled out.

The blast and fire occurred about 9 p.m. Saturday in the Rahpouyan-e Vessal cultural center section of Shohada Hosseiniyeh mosque in the city of Shiraz, IRNA, Iran's state-run news agency reported.

More here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/13/iran.explosion/index.html

[ohio2007]

15. video of the explosion here

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=20e_1208097765

Now why would they be keeping ammo in a mosque....as mementos and a tribute to the Iran/Iraq war of course?


http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=860_1208111576

Wonder if the Vatican sits on V2 rockets or some other war momentos ?