On Saturday night at least one bomb blast ripped through a crowded mosque in Shiraz, Iran. Twelve people were killed in the explosions and over 200 were injured.
Iranians gather near the scene of a bomb explosion in a mosque which killed several people, in the city of Shiraz, 559 miles (990 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran, Saturday, April 12, 2008. (Iranian Fars News)
The cause of the blast(s) is still under investigation. The regime says that the explosions may have been accidental– although others remain skeptical.
Today Iran Press News posted video taken in Shiraz after the bombing:
The power of YouTube!
Local authorities say that it was just old ammunition stored inside the mosque that was leftover from the Iran-Iraq War that accidentally exploded:
Iran’s judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi has appointed the state inspection organisation and the justice ministry to head the investigation, state broadcasting said.
A deadly militant strike of this magnitude would be unprecedented in recent years in a stable city like Shiraz, a tourist magnet which does not lie near border zones or have significant ethnic minority populations.
One of Iran’s most famous cities, Shiraz is popular with foreign tourists because of its proximity to important ancient sites from the Achaemenid Empire that ruled much of Asia from 550-331 BC.
But local security officials have insisted that the explosion was the result of negligence, mooting the possibility that ordnance inside the mosque used for an exhibition about the 1980-1988 war with Iraq could have blown up.
So what’s with all of these mosques storing ammunition?
Previously:
BOMB BLAST IN IRAN!… 9 Dead in Mosque Explosion
