Iran defuses homemade bomb on plane -media

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Security personnel defused a  homemade bomb found on an aircraft during a domestic flight in  Iran late yesterday, Iranian media said, two days after a  mosque bombing killed 25 people in the country’s southeast.

The incident occurred less than two weeks before the Islamic  Republic holds a presidential election in which the conservative  incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, faces a challenge from  reformers.

“The enemies want to create a security-threat environment  before the country’s presidential election and to create  hopelessness among people,” the official IRNA news agency quoted  Mohammad Hassan Kazemi, a commander in the elite Revolutionary  Guards in charge of aviation security, as saying. The semi-official Fars news agency said the device was  defused after the Tehran-bound Kish Air aircraft with 131  passengers on board made an emergency landing in the  southwestern city of Ahvaz.