In case you aren't confused yet
It's easy to get confused about the details of the religious/ethnic cleavages in Iran. When it's necessary to include groups outside the country, things get more complex. And then, when an ayatollah has the same last name as a former president...In Iran, Ahmadinejad campaign office attacked
Preelection tensions rose Friday in Iran's religiously and ethnically mixed southeast after gunmen opened fire on the president's campaign office and a radical group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a mosque the day before that killed up to 23 people and injured scores.
"The hands of America and Israel were undoubtedly involved in this incident," prayer leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami told supporters in Tehran, referring to Thursday's bombing of a Shiite mosque. "Although Wahhabis and the infidel and evil Salafis were an accomplice to the crime, they were being led from somewhere else."
Wahhabi and Salafi are puritanical schools of Sunni Islam rooted in Saudi Arabia. They have inspired Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network, as well as the Taliban and other groups that denounce Shiite Islam, the majority sect in Iran.
Khatami is a staunch hard-liner unrelated to former President Mohammad Khatami, who is a moderate...
[T]he Sunni militant group Jundallah, which is linked to Al Qaeda and draws support from Iran's ethnic Baluch minority, claimed responsibility for the mosque bombing on a Shiite holiday...
Authorities announced the arrest of three suspects, who allegedly crossed into Iran over the barren desert border from Afghanistan or Pakistan with the aim of sowing political and sectarian discord before the vote. The border area has long been the scene of drug trafficking and tribal banditry...
Members of Iran's Baluch minority, an ethnic group that straddles southeastern Iran, southern Pakistan and Afghanistan, have for years waged an insurgency against the government, striking targets in and around Zahedan. The Taliban has also infiltrated Baluch regions of Pakistan, especially the main city of Quetta...
Iran Said to Execute Three Over Mosque Bombing
Iran executed in public on Saturday three men convicted of involvement in a bomb attack on a mosque that killed 25 people, the official IRNA news agency reported...
Labels: cleavages, elections, Iran, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:32 AM
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