the Intelligence Ministry had been able to arrest a number of individuals behind Sunday’s bombing and accused them of having ties to London.

l wonder if the UN, or INt.Amenisa, will seek out those who are tortured by the Iranians police?
Its nice to see Iranians fight back at their leaders.. terrorism bites them back!

Posted by: Lulu at February 21, 2006 7:50 AM

Once again Iran has defacto declared war on a NATO partner with a blood libel.

Once again we have ignored them.

It would be OK if we were buying time and were furiously building up our defensive and offensive capacities but I seriously doubt this is happening.

Posted by: Sebastien at February 21, 2006 8:22 AM

Well, there is a British Ahwaz Society, but I have a feeling that the dislike for the Persians is somewhat local there, for the usual reasons. See:

See: http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/news.html

Posted by: Imli at February 21, 2006 8:39 AM

Wait! I thought it was the JEWS who were doing this to the poor helpless Muslims, not the British. Well in any case I'm confident they will find some way to blame Israel for these explosions.

Posted by: Bohemond_1069 at February 21, 2006 8:48 AM

Question - Why do the Iranians blame Britain for this, and previous, bombings that have recently occured? I could understand blaming the US, or Sunnis, or Israelis, or a "generic Western menace".

Am I missing something about UK/Iran relations?

-MikeMontana@Hotmail.com

Posted by: MikeMontana at February 21, 2006 9:55 AM

So sit down Mamoud. Put your feet up. Relax. Now tell us again; Renegade double-o agents are running around SW Iran letting off firecrackers? I see. Are any of these agents here, now? Do you see them in the room with us? Are they telling you things... are the saying things you don't want to hear? Tell us about your mother...

Posted by: Animus Fox at February 21, 2006 10:07 AM

SORRY ABOUT LENGTH BUT WHEN I READ THIS I HAD TO CUT AND PASTE IT. SHOULD BE SHOWN TO ALL WHO APPEASE.

'Whoever insults the one true Church deserves to be killed.' (News report)
David Aaronovitch

“EUROPE MUST LEARN to live in and with the world, not to dominate it, nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous. Any continent that has inflicted such brutality on the world over a period of 200 years has not too much to be proud of, and much to be modest and humble about.” Martin Jacques, The Guardian, on the cartoons row.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe . . .

From a Reuters report, Rome, some time around now

The Vatican has protested in “the strongest possible terms” against the publication in paperback of Dan Brown’s bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. Cardinal Loopi, of the Office of the Defence of the Faith, condemned the book for defaming Catholicism and, in its suggestion that Jesus Christ was married, of heresy. “We demand that the book be destroyed and that the author be punished,” said Loopi, “otherwise we cannot be held responsible for how Catholics throughout the world may react.”

Excerpt from a speech by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor

Merkel: “The affront to the honour of the one true Church is in fact an affront to the worship of God, and to the seeking of truth and justice, and an affront to all the prophets of God. Obviously, all those who harm the honour of the one true Church . . .”

Crowd: “Death to Dan Brown.

Death to Dan Brown.

Death to Dan Brown.

Death to Dan Brown.”

From the Paris correspondent of al-Jazeera

A Lyons priest today offered half a million euros and a top-of-the-line Toyota as a reward to anyone who killed Dan Brown or any executive of the Da Vinci Code publishers, Jonathan Cape. Speaking to a 1,000-strong crowd gathered after Mass outside the church of St Marie-la-Vierge, Fr Jules Monbiot announced that the offer was “a unanimous decision by all bishops that whoever insults the one true Church deserves to be killed, and whoever will take this insulting man to his end will get this prize”.

News stories in al-Ahram (Cairo)

Bookseller shot dead in Poland, by teenager shouting: “For God, and the Pope!”

Ten killed in Lisbon Dan Brown riots, when police opened fire on mob ransacking the Canadian Embassy. “We thought he was Canadian,” says riot leader.

Violence in northwest London as Jews go on rampage against Holocaust denial in Muslim countries. Kebab restaurants and curry houses ablaze from the Finchley Road to Edgware.

Iranian and Syrian embassies and consulates attacked in 20 cities worldwide. Iranian Embassy destroyed in Canberra. Australian Government describes violence as “regrettable, but understandable”.

Speech by Angela Merkel, about the convening of an international conference in Berlin to “investigate” Islam

“We propose the following to the Muslims: if you are not lying, allow a group of neutral, honest researchers to come to Mecca, and to talk to people, examine documents and let people know the findings of their research about the Muhammad myth. You have even prevented your own scholars from researching this issue. They are allowed to study anything except for the Muhammad myth. Are these not medieval methods?”

Reuters report from Berlin

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel today caused alarm in diplomatic circles when she called for the Netherlands to be ‘wiped from the face of the earth’.” She went on, “The establishment of the Dutch regime was a move by the world oppressor against the Catholic world.”

Summary of an article in French government newspaper, Le Monde

The Netherlands may have created the avian flu virus in order to damage the economies of Europe, and cleverly planted it first in the Far East to divert attention away from the real plan.

Angela Merkel on German attempts to produce a nuclear weapon

“Those who oppose us should be grateful that our people has acted nobly towards you so far, and has been patient. We want to remain patient. Don’t make us lose our patience. The peoples have awakened. The world of Christendom has awakened. Do not make us reconsider our policies.”

Reuters reports from Munich

Fr Rudiger Schlitz, the assistant to the head of the Catholic Church in Germany, has said that it is doctrinally permissible for nuclear weapons to be used. “When the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is permissible to use these weapons as a counter-measure. According to church law, only the goal is important . . .”

Al-Jazeera News. Mark Seddon reporting . . .

These are the pictures of Our Lady’s Church in Shoreham, following the explosion in which 31 parishioners died, along with the suicide bomber, who is believed to belong to the majority Anglican community. This is the fourth such bomb attack on a Catholic church in the last two years.

Statement from Human Rights Watch . . .

Calling on the Italian authorities to order an immediate, independent investigation into the violent suppression of an apparently peaceful demonstration by Seventh Day Adventists in Naples on February 13, 2005. Hundreds of demonstrators, including women and children, were injured when police and armed militia from the Catholic Enforcement League broke up the protest, apparently using excessive force, and as many as 1,200 protesters are believed to have been arrested. A year later 200 of those detained are still being held without trial.

Report from al Quds-al-Arabi

Finland. Mr X, a local celebrity and Muslim, was exhumed after his funeral and given a Christian burial, despite his widow’s objection that he had not been to Church since he was a child, and had converted to Islam at the age of 15. A church court had considered the case following a complaint from a local Lutheran preacher, and ruled that Mr X should be treated as a Christian.

Excerpts from Amnesty International Report for 2006

In Newcastle, England, a special court sentenced a Gateshead woman to be burnt to death for witchcraft. Betty Spencer, 53, was immolated in front of a crowd that had gathered in the Newcastle United football stadium. It was the sixth such execution since the year 2000.

In Idaho a teacher was killed and three of his pupils badly injured when militia members of the “Party of Christ”, who object to girls being educated on the same premises as boys, fired into a packed schoolroom.

And finally, the good news . . .

From hiding, somewhere in Pakistan, Dan Brown apologises to the Judaeo-Christian world for the publication of The Da Vinci Code, promises to donate the proceeds from all his books to any charity nominated for the purpose by Opus Dei and undertakes to become a monk in a silent order at a monastery atop a high mountain in the Apennines.

Posted by: Truth4u at February 21, 2006 10:27 AM

This is quite bizarre. Unless Iran has projected Anglo military might upon European daily parody and arrived at the conclusion that Britain is the worst of both worlds. I can only imagine: a sculpture of Mohammad with a real bomb on his head!

Posted by: alaric7 at February 21, 2006 10:29 AM

@ Truth4u: LOL at the post :>

Posted by: Imli at February 21, 2006 10:58 AM

Truth4u

Do you have a link to the above article?

Panos

Posted by: panos at February 21, 2006 11:05 AM

Truth4u

Do you have a link to the above article?

Panos

Posted by: panos at February 21, 2006 11:06 AM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22369-2049788,00.html

LOL

Posted by: Truth4u at February 21, 2006 11:40 AM

MikeMontana -

I have wondered about Iran's motives in blaming these explosions on Britain, also. Perhaps, they are establishing a pretext for moving Iranian troops into Southern Iraq - currently occupied by the British.

Remember, the Nazis used a similarly flimsy pretext as an excuse to invade Poland in 1939?

Another thing I have speculated about: is the refusal of Bush to send more troops into Iraq really a force protection measure? Exposing as few as possible to Iranian missile attack? It's the only explanation that makes sense to me.

Posted by: 00Buck at February 21, 2006 1:48 PM

Mike, Iran holds the British partially responsible for Jewish settlement of Israel. Search "the birth of Isarel" if you are inerested.

Posted by: Shinny at February 21, 2006 2:06 PM

You beat me to it 00buck

"Am I missing something about UK/Iran relations?
-MikeMontana@Hotmail.com"

The Iranaians clearly want British troops out of Southern Iraq, because it interferes with their influence of the mainly Shiite population.

Very strange that these are sound-bombs. The Iranians are obviously doing this themselves and any "arrests of suspects" is a hoax to "interrogate them" and reveal a "British connection."

Third rate cloak and dagger in my opinion.

Posted by: beav at February 21, 2006 2:09 PM

Iran is not a country but an empire. About half the population consists of non-Persians: Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, and ethnic Arabs in the south, in Khuzistan, and its capital Ahwaz, and all that oil that is located in Khuzistan.

The Iranians stand to lose, if they continue their mad course, not only the nuclear project that even some -- too many -- Iranians unsympathetic to the regime apparently support for reasons of shallow and blind nationalism, but the country of Iran.

A free Kurdistan will attract the Kurds (10% of Iran's population) and make them wish to join their territories to Kurdistan. The Azeris in the north, nearly 1/3 of Iran's population, might prefer to be on their own, or united with the Azeris of Azerbaijan, and with it they would bring territory on which oil and gas deposits are to be found.

The Baluchis aren't all that happy with their treatment by Persian masters either.

And finally, the Arabs of Khuzistan may be only 5% or less of Iran's population, but they sit on all those oil deposits -- a kind of mirror image of the Shi'a who sit on all those Saudi deposits in al-Hasa province.

There's mischief to be made, if only the Infidels would choose to make that mischief -- and keep it up.

It used to be called the Great Game.

Then the Western world forgot that it did not owe the rest of the world, and especially the world of Islam, both a living and a permanent apology for remaining in existence itself.

Time to put away those childish things.

Posted by: Hugh at February 21, 2006 2:43 PM

He will have a bomb planted – right on top of his nuclear bomb factories - possibly by a number of countries.

Posted by: Pass It On at February 21, 2006 6:02 PM

This is not the first time that some real or imagined event inside Persia (Iran) has been blamed on the British. It has happened many times since the current regime in Persia came to power.

There are several reasons for this:

1) As Mr. Fitzgerald says, the Persian regime partly blames the UK for the establishment of Israel and believes that we either did not keep to the Mandate or that we unilaterally altered it.

2) The regime believes that it can separate the UK and the USA - at the extreme end of this some of them believe that they can make us go to war with each other (strange misguided people, don't they realise that the only people allowed to be rude about the USA is the UK and vice versa - we have even managed to patch things up between us after the War of Independence; yes, yes, I know that you can be a little tardy with the help - WWs I and II - but we are the only people allowed to say that).

3) Persia was once a British possession and this sort of thing is a mugabe. (A 'mugabe' is the playing of a spurious and irrelevant sound bite in order to scare your own folks back into line; it is pronounced 'moo-gay-b' in order to be as offensive to the originator of this practice as possible).

4) It is about the presence of British troops in Southern Iraq (also once a British possession - so you see why they may be scared and resorting to more mugabes than usual). They hope to give our troops there sucha hard time that we will pull out and leave your guys in the lurch.

Hope this helps.

(By the way, the UAE were also a British possession once as were Egypt, Jordan, The Lebanon and the territory known as Pakistan. I'll bet all you Americans are wishing that you had left our Empire intact now instead of forcing us to dismantle it after WWII. :) Things might have been a lot quieter, eh?)

Posted by: Certiorari at February 21, 2006 7:47 PM

Hey MikeMontana, The Iranians have a storied history with the British since it was the British who were responsible for putting the Shah and his family in power. They and the Americans were responsible for keeping him there until his fall and the rise of the Ayatollahs in 1978. If you were in favour with the Pahlavi dynasty then everything was hunkydory, but he became very corrupt appropriating other peoples land (and worse) then there was his dreaded secret police "SAVAK" who were terribly hated and feared. It is true that he dragged his country into the 20th century, educating women and banning the veil, but this was tremendously unpopular with the hard-line clerics. The British were blamed for all of this. And then of course there was Anglo-Persian Oil. A British oil company who agreed to pay royalties for all the oil they extracted to the Iranians, but of course it was never enough, 16% then 20% and on and on and this was always a bone of contention.
Russia and Britain have always fought over Iran and then things became complicated when Germany started causing trouble in the south at the start of WW1. The Iranians always made the best deal with whoever they thought would serve them well at the time which was their right, but always tried to back out of it later (or re-negotiate the terms)
Nowadays the British have few overt friends in Iran, less even than the Americans. This is why there is little enthusiasm on either side of the Atlantic for liberating them from the results of their Student Revolution of 1978 "a la Iraq" or Afghanistan style. An air war maybe, but no troops on the ground from NATO.
Meanwhile the British make a good scapegoat for just about everything, including what are sure to be internal assasination attempts on Ahmadinejad.

Posted by: dianainsa at February 21, 2006 10:06 PM