Top Iranian officials said Sunday they suspected British involvement in a double bomb attack in the ethnic-Arab dominated city of Ahvaz, despite furious denials and condemnation of the attacks from London.
Two bombs exploded outside a crowded market late Saturday in Ahvaz, capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province adjacent to British-occupied southern Iraq. Five people were killed and more than 100 injured, according to the latest official toll.
"Since there are British troops present alongside our border, there is a concern over their involvement in the explosions in Ahvaz," Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliament's foreign policy commission, told the student news agency ISNA.
"We have information on their previous involvement in the unrest in Khuzestan," he was quoted as saying, even though the British embassy in Tehran had quickly moved to condemn the attacks and deny any involvement.
"The explosions in Ahvaz had a British accent," the head of Iran's Basij volunteer militia, Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, was quoted as saying by ISNA. "It's a conspiracy," Hejazi alleged.
Iran's Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi also told ISNA that "usually this kind of insecurity comes from the other side of the border and is guided from there."
And Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Hossein Mousapour told the Mehr news agency that "most probably those involved in the explosion were British agents who were involved in the previous incidents in Ahvaz and Khuzestan."
The blasts occurred shortly before dusk when shoppers crowd commercial areas to buy food for iftar - or the breaking of the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The province has been hit by a wave of unrest this year, including riots in April and a series of car bombings prior to Iran's presidential elections in June. Iranian hard-liners have already alleged a British link to the simmering unrest.
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