Several injured in attack on reformist party HQ in
Tehran: reports
TEHRAN, Feb 25 (AFP) - Gunmen opened fire on the Tehran headquarters
of Iran's leading moderate party, wounding up to three people amid a wave
of political violence ahead of Friday's landmark municipal elections.
Several bursts of automatic weapon fire riddled the northern Tehran
offices of the Executives of Construction Party on Wednesday, the Hamshahri
newspaper reported Thursday.
Gunmen reportedly opened fire on the offices of the party, which supports
reformist President Mohammad Khatami, and then fled on a motorcycle.
According to Akhbar newspaper, three people were lightly injured in
the attack, while the English-language newspaper Iran News said one female
party employee was wounded.
The party denounced the "terrorist" attack and vowed "the
way led by President Khatami will not be blocked by such acts."
The previously unknown fundamentalist group Ansar Sarallah claimed the
attack, according to the reformist newspaper Khordad.
The group denounced "a society in which we see more and more depravity
erupting under the guise of freedom and a civil society," a reference
to Khatami's reformist agenda.
"If ears to hear the imam's commands are blocked, we will unblock
them with bullets," an anonymous caller told the paper.
The attack was one of a series of outbreaks of political violence ahead
of Friday's first-ever municipal elections -- a vote that has heightened
tensions between hardliners and reformers in the Islamic republic.
Police had to evacuate a political rally in the eastern town of Mashhad
for moderate MP Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of former president Rafsanjani,
after fundamentalist students disrupted the meeting, the Khorassan paper
reported.
Several papers also reported an attack on a rally for leftist politician
Azam Taleghani held in a mosque in the Western town of Karaj.
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