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Bomb in oil town right before elections Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Bombs kill 5, hurt 89 in Iran oil town before poll
Sun Jun 12, 2005 06:59 AM ET
By Alistair Lyon
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Four bomb blasts killed at least five people and wounded 89 in a southwestern oil town on Sunday, five days before Iran's presidential election.
The bombs were aimed at state buildings in Ahvaz, capital of the partly Arabic-speaking province of Khuzestan, where five people were killed in ethnic unrest in April.
Gholamreza Shariati, deputy governor of Khuzestan, told Reuters women and children were among the casualties of the morning bombings spread over two hours.
State television quoted hospital officials as saying eight people had been killed, four of them women, and 30 wounded.
The bombs targeted the governor's office in the town, 550 km (340 miles) southwest of Tehran, as well as two local government departments and a housing complex for state media employees.
A pool of blood stained the floor of a waiting room at the governor's office, where the explosion had wrecked ceilings, broken windows and destroyed a car outside, TV footage showed.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. The Popular Democratic Front of Ahvaz, which is campaigning for an independent Khuzestan, denied responsibility.
Shariati said the bombings were aimed at disrupting the election, in which opinion polls tip Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to regain the post he held from 1989-97.
"Those behind the blasts want to endanger the country's sovereignty ahead of the elections," Shariati told state television. "They want to harm the system, but the people's desire to vote will become stronger in such conditions."
Rafsanjani, a wily pragmatist regarded as the most moderate of five conservative candidates, remains well short of the 50 percent support he needs to avoid a run-off poll between the two top vote-getters.
A poll published on Saturday showed that Mostafa Moin, one of three reformists in the race, had edged ahead of former police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf into second place.
QUELLING SUSPICIONS
With an international row over Iran's nuclear program weighing heavily on the election, Rafsanjani has said Iran must pursue confidence-building measures to reassure the West it has no military nuclear ambitions.
"The most important issue is building confidence. We are determined to build confidence," he told reporters on Saturday.
Tehran has suspended its uranium enrichment program, which could produce fuel for power plants or weapons, under a November deal with France, Britain and Germany, which have offered Iran incentives to end and dismantle the project.
The European trio shares U.S. suspicions that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. They say the only way Tehran can allay these suspicions is to abandon all enrichment activities.
Rafsanjani, widely seen in Iran as the man with the best chance of repairing ties with the United States, hinted he could gain the support of hardline Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on state policy.
"Regarding nuclear and other issues (U.S. relations), I believe I am the closest person to the leader," he said. "Our ideas are so close that we will never have any disputes."
The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch group said on Sunday the election would not be free or fair because only candidates approved by an unelected religious committee can stand.
Human Rights Watch said election laws prevented candidates from outside the ruling elite from running for president.
"Iran's elections for all practical purposes are pre-cooked," Joe Stork, deputy director of the New York-based group's Middle East division, said in a statement.
More than 1,000 people registered as candidates, but the 12-man Guardian Council excluded all but six. Two reformists were reinstated on the list after Khamenei intervened.
Officials have not commented directly on the Human Rights Watch statement, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected similar criticism from U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said last week Iran was thoroughly out of step with democratic trends in the region.
"America and Rice say that the outcome of the elections is pre-planned. It seems that Rice has become a fortune-teller as well," Asefi said at a weekly ministry briefing.
"My suggestion to the Americans, and especially Rice, is to speak more carefully to avoid being humiliated after the elections," the spokesman said, predicting a high turnout that he said would confound U.S. officials.
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Christian Oliver)
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