[R-G] Iran accuses US and Britain of provoking deadly tensions

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2006 Agence France Presse
All Rights Reserved
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Agence France Presse -- English

March 18, 2006 Saturday 9:53 AM GMT

LENGTH: 451 words

HEADLINE: Iran accuses US and Britain of provoking deadly tensions

DATELINE: TEHRAN, March 18 2006

BODY:


Iran on Saturday accused the United States and Britain of provoking  
ethnic and religious tensions that led to the killing of 23 people in  
an ambush by Afghan bandits near Iran's border with Afghanistan.

"What is clear is that the United States and Britain are behind the  
events," Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi said according to  
the student news agency ISNA.

"According to our reports, US and British security chiefs met with  
rebel leaders and provoked them to commit such attacks."

The interior minister also accused the United States and Britain of  
involvement in the recent wave of unrest in the southwestern province  
of Khuzistan, which borders Iraq and is home to a large ethnic Arab  
minority.

Iranian officials said Friday that Afghan bandits with links to US  
and British security services had killed 22 people in Iran, but on  
Saturday raisd the death toll to 23.

Among those killed was Hossein Ali Nouri, the governor of Zahedan,  
who was first reported critically wounded and later died of his  
injuries, Iranian media said.

Police said "a group of armed bandits" crossed the Afghanistan border  
and ambushed "innocent people driving in their vehicles" between the  
border city of Zabol and Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan  
province.

According to some Iranian news agencies on Friday, Nouri and his  
deputy were shot several times in the chest and abdomen.

The officials were returning to Zahedan after attending a ceremony of  
war commanders in Zabol, the reports added.

Iran's police commander, Brigadier General Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam,  
told state television Friday: "We have information that the bandits  
in Sistan-Baluchistan area had some meetings with the British and the  
American security services.

"These services have dictated plans to the bandits on how to  
destabilise the area. They are trying to spread disputes between  
Shiites and Sunnis. This is a terrorist action against innocent  
civilians," he told reporters upon arriving at Zahedan's airport.

Ahmadi-Moqaddam said the bandits had killed Shiites, who were stopped  
at a mock checkpoint.

"There is the possibility that the bandits have escaped to  
Afghanistan since the area is close to the border," he added.

Sistan-Baluchistan, a mostly Sunni Muslim province in predominantly  
Shiite Iran, is notoriously lawless and is a key transit route for  
opium and other drugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan headed for Europe  
and the Gulf.

Three month ago, a group of Iranian soldiers was kidnapped near the  
border with Pakistan by a hardline Sunni Muslim group operating in  
the unruly border area. They were later released.

Iranian officials and media had initially said the kidnappers were  
bandits, drug traffickers or dissident tribesmen.

sgh-ksh/np