Iran Accuses UK of Terrorist Bombings

The Daily Star (Lebanon) reports that the Iranian government is accusing the British of being behind the bombs that exploded near a market in Ahvaz:

"Since there are British troops present alongside our border, there is a concern over their involvement in the explosions in Ahvaz," Aalaeddine Borujerdi, the head of the Iranian Parliament's foreign policy commission, told the student news agency ISNA.

"We have information on their previous involvement in the unrest in Khuzestan," he was quoted as saying, even though the British Embassy in Tehran had swiftly condemned the attacks and denied any involvement.

"The explosions in Ahvaz had a British accent," the head of Iran's Basij volunteer militia, Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi, was quoted as saying by ISNA. "It's a conspiracy," Hejazi alleged.

Iran's Interior Minister Mustafa Pour-Mohammadi also told ISNA that "usually this kind of insecurity comes from the other side of the border and is guided from there."

If the Brits really have commandos capable of such a stealth mission - slipping unseen into a hostile country, repeatedly approaching a crowded market undetected, then escaping without leaving a shred of evidence - one hopes that they soon will be put to use in other venues; slipping into Cuba to get rid of Castro, perhaps, or taking out that inconvenient maniac in Venezuela.

After the accusations, an Iranian spokesman added:

"Unlike the British, we are not going to express our views without the necessary investigations," spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said at a weekly news conference.

"We don't talk without proof and documentation," he said, in reference to Tehran's complaints that London had not provided evidence to support its accusations about Iran's alleged involvement in Iraq.

Oh, really?