EDITORS’ NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject  to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take  pictures in Tehran.

TEHRAN, (Reuters) – A security crackdown appears to  have quelled street rallies against Iran’s disputed poll, but  the leadership faced a new challenge yesterday from calls by  reformist clerics for national mourning for dead protesters.

While defiant cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) were  again heard from Tehran rooftops as darkness descended  overnight, Iran’s hardline Islamist leadership, for now at  least, seemed to have gained the upper hand.

Hundreds of riot police and Basij militiamen on Tehran’s  main squares appeared to have largely put an end to mass  protests against the June 12 election, which reformists say was  rigged in favour of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

At least 10 protesters were killed in the worst violence on  Saturday, and about seven more early last week. Many of the  deaths have been filmed by fellow demonstrators, posted on the  Internet and viewed by thousands around the world.

U.S. President Barack Obama toughened his stance yesterday  and said he was “appalled and outraged” by Iran’s crackdown.

Iran has accused the protesters of being backed by the West,  the United States and Britain in particular, and have paraded  arrested young demonstrators on state television confessing to  being incited by foreign news broadcasts.

The Foreign Ministry accused U.N. Secretary-General Ban  Ki-moon of interfering in Iran’s affairs “under the influence of  some powers”, an apparent reference to Britain and the United  States.

Tehran’s hardline leadership is locked in a dispute with  Western powers over its nuclear programme, which it says is  intended for generating electricity but which the West suspects  could yield nuclear weapons that could destabilise the region.

Obama said the United States would not interfere in the  protests, describing accusations it was instigating them as  “patently false and absurd”.

“This tired strategy of using old tensions to scapegoat  other countries won’t work any more in Iran,” he said.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a dissident but yet  one of the most senior clerics in Iran, called for three days of  national mourning from today for those killed.

“Resisting the people’s demand is religiously prohibited,”  Montazeri said in a statement on his website.

Montazeri was once named successor to Ayatollah Rohullah  Khomeini, but fell out with the founder of the Islamic Republic  shortly before his death in 1989. Montazeri has been under house  arrest in the holy city of Qom for around a decade.
Reformist cleric Mehdi Karoubi who came third in the  election also signalled opposition would continue, calling on  Iranians to hold ceremonies tomorrow to mourn the dead.

But in an apparent concession, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,  who holds all the key levers of power in Iran, accepted a  request from Iran’s top legislative body to allow five more days  for candidates to lodge complaints over the election.