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President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed Iran’s foreign minister Mottaki, a move which surprises many and showed to reflect a strengthening of the president’s power in Iranian politics. Reports suggested that after the 2005 election, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, forced the newly elected Ahmadinejad to accept Mottaki as foreign minister, even though Mottaki had backed Larijani’s presidential campaign.1
Iran’s Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar blamed the CIA’s involvement for suicide bombings in Southeast Iran as the death toll rose to 36. He noted that “from the inspection of equipment obtained from the terrorist elements of this crime, it has become clear that the CIA and other spy agencies were involved.” However he did not give details. Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused the west of working to divide the Muslim world. The attack on a Shiite religious procession was claimed by Sunni militant group Jundallah (Army of God), which says it is fighting for the rights of the region’s Sunni ethnic Baluchi community against Iran’s Shiite regime. Nine people linked to the bombing have reportedly been arrested.2
- 1. “Iranian Leader Suddenly Fires Top Diplomat,” The New York Times, December 13, 2010, at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html?_r=1&hpw=...
- 2. “CIA accused of role in Iran suicide bombing,” Khaleej Times, December 17, 2010, at http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2...