Bombs kill four in SW Iran, dozens wounded

Reuters:

Two bombs set off minutes apart killed four people and wounded dozens of others in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz, local officials said on Saturday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings, which were the latest in a string of attacks and violence this year in Khuzestan province, the heartland of Iran's oil industry.

Officials said the two blasts, five minutes apart, occurred on Saturday afternoon close to a shopping center in central Ahvaz.

"The bombs were in two garbage cans 50 metres (yards) apart," said deputy Ahvaz governor Rahim Fazilatpour. "Four people were killed and more than 70 were injured," he told the official IRNA news agency. READ MORE

Ahvaz Governor Mohammad Jafar Sarami said some of the wounded were in critical condition. "It's a terrorist act," he told state television.

Khuzestan, which borders Iraq, contains most of Iran's Arabic-speaking minority.

Officials have blamed the violence on exile-based separatist groups and have suggested that some of the perpetrators may have received British training. London denies the charge.

Violence erupted in Khuzestan in April when at least five people were killed during several days of anti-government demonstrations. A string of bomb attacks followed just ahead of national elections in June, killing seven people in Ahvaz.

Small bombs damaged 15 pipelines and one oil well in Khuzestan in September.