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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | ||
| Iran police defuse bomb under bridge in restive city | ||
| 2005-10-18 | ||
| Iranian police said they had defused a large bomb planted under a bridge in the restive southwestern city of Ahvaz just days after a double bomb attack there killed six people and injured more than 100. The police information centre told state television on Tuesday that local residents tipped off police after spotting a suspicious package under a busy bridge in the city, the capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province and dominated by ethnic minority Arabs. The report said the package -- wired up and containing eight anti-personnel mines, around a kilogram (two pounds) of TNT, one stun grenade and a large number of fuses -- was successfully defused late on Monday.
Iranian officials have in the past blamed Arab separatist groups or Iranian opposition militants they say enjoy backing across the border in Iraq. Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he suspected British involvement in Saturday's bombing, an allegation that came hot on the heels of British complaints of Iranian meddling in Iraq. "Iran's security and intelligence officials have come across British footprints" in past attacks in the area, he said, adding that "we are strongly suspicious of British forces committing terrorist acts". A more explicit allegation was made earlier Sunday by the head of Iran's Basij volunteer militia, Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, who said the blasts in Ahvaz "had a British accent". Britain has denied the allegations and condemned the attacks. It says it has also told Tehran that "the British government and British forces in Iraq stand ready to help in anyway they can to prevent attacks of this kind or identify those responsible and bring them to justice". Britain's charge d'affaires to Iran was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry Monday to hear a complaint over British allegations that Iran is meddling in Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other senior officials said last week there was evidence that a series of deadly attacks in southern Iraq lead back to Iran and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Iran has dismissed the allegations as "absurd and baseless". | ||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #8 end-of-tran/caboose rulz Definition, please? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-10-18 19:11 |
| #7 when the railroad employees in the US went on strike, producing a similar effect, it cost the economy 300 BILLION dollars a day The strike was enroute to destroy the entire US economy inside of 40 days. It was horrible. Luckily the end-of-tran/caboose rulz were kept. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-10-18 17:46 |
| #6 All I can say is: "BWAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!! Give a Sh** Meter flat-lining!!!! |
| Posted by: anymouse 2005-10-18 15:04 |
| #5 'one stun grenade' wtf , a stun grenade too - whats the point in that then? i'd imagine anyone hit by that bomb would be a tad more then stunned. |
| Posted by: Shep UK 2005-10-18 13:56 |
| #4 Bridges take a lot to bring down. Hello? Third world country? Odds are it wouldn't stand up to a stern look. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-10-18 12:40 |
| #3 Could be Zark. He don't like Shiite's. |
| Posted by: plainslow 2005-10-18 12:06 |
| #2 Two of the principles of sabotage are first, terrorism is far less effective at changing minds than is the perception of government incompetence; and second, that you should concentrate your efforts against the junction points, not individual targets. In the first case, adding sugar to construction concrete to make it water soluble is more effective than blowing up whatever has been made after. Dull, boring and effective. In the second case, it is far better to hopelessly tangle the wiring in a switching yard than it is to destroy a single set of tracks. Instead of a single nuisance, a hundred nuisances. (N.B.: when the railroad employees in the US went on strike, producing a similar effect, it cost the economy 300 BILLION dollars a day.) The concept is just the opposite of terrorism, whose goals are to make a big, spectacular noise, and to let the man in the street know that the terrorist is responsible for it. The goal of effective sabotage is the target, not the publicity. If the British or the US wanted to send Iran a message, it would not be gauged in blood and terror, but by the screams of accountants looking at the end of the month's books. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-10-18 11:48 |
| #1 "Bah! Hezbollah is our dog!" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-18 11:12 |