Bombs amid polls

摘要

"Psychological warfare" is how Ali Yunessi, Iran's intelligence minister, described a spate of explosions that went off around the country on and after June 12th, killing seven people in the south-western town of Ahwaz and three in the capital, Tehran. He and other officials believe that the bombers' common aim was to throw Iran's presidential election campaign into disarray a few days before the polls opened, on June 17th, and to keep nervous voters at home. Iranian officials have been at pains to distinguish between the three big bombs that targeted government officials in Ahwaz and the amateurish devices that exploded in Tehran and other places, including Qom, a seminary town. Many have linked the Ahwaz bombs to April's ethnic rioting there, which was probably caused by agents provocateurs and brought members of the city's Arab minority into conflict with the police. (The Arabs came out worse; five were killed.) Three Arab nationalist groups have put their names to the Ahwaz explosions, but the bombers, says Mr Yunessi, "have links abroad".