Bomb attacks hit Iran over the weekend, and Iran responded by pointing an accusing finger at the Brits.
Yo, Iran: Pot, kettle, black.
Iran’s president accused Britain on Sunday of being behind deadly weekend bomb attacks in Iran, sharply escalating tension after the United States and Britain charged Iran was involved in insurgent attacks in Iraq.
“We are very suspicious about the role of British forces in perpetrating such terrorist acts,” the ISNA student news agency quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying of twin bombings that killed five people in southwest Iran on Saturday.
“Our people are used to these kind of incidents, and our intelligence agents found the footprints of Britain in the same incidents before,” Ahmadinejad said during a cabinet meeting.
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Britain, which has more than 8,000 troops in southern Iraq, has denied any link with the two bombs in the oil city Ahvaz, which injured more than 80, and with the string of attacks this year in Khuzestan province, the center of Iran’s oil industry.
No one has claimed responsibility for the homemade bombs, planted in garbage bins and detonated a few minutes apart.
Ahmadinejad’s remarks raised tension between Tehran and London to new heights. Relations were already sensitive because talks between Iran and Britain, France and Germany on Iran’s controversial nuclear program broke down in August.
Britain and the United States have accused Iran or the Tehran-backed Lebanese group Hizbollah of providing military expertise to Iraqi insurgents behind attacks on British troops in southern Iraq.
Iran denies meddling in Iraq and says the accusations against it are psychological warfare tied to efforts by Washington and London to report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear program.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if these attacks were a home-grown problem from a vary sizable portion of the Iranian population growing ever more restless for freedom and democracy. Likewise, I wouldn’t mind a bit if the U.S. or our allies were working to foment any such restlessness.