BEIRUT, (Reuters) – Economic or ethnic discontent may lie behind an apparently amateurish attack on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s convoy yesterday — if such it was — rather than any plot by militants or foreign foes to kill him.
Ahmadinejad, one of Iran’s most divisive leaders since the 1979 Islamic revolution, is defying tougher sanctions over his country’s nuclear programme, but is under fire from reformist and conservative critics of his foreign and economic policies.
His disputed re-election in June 2009 provoked huge street protests that were crushed by security forces led by the elite Revolutionary Guards.
Defeated candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi always urged their supporters to avoid violence.
A source in the president’s office said Ahmadinejad survived unhurt when a home-made explosive device was thrown at his motorcade as it drove through the western city of Hamadan.
Some Iranian media denied there had been any attack at all, or sharply toned down their initial accounts of the blast.
The semi-official Fars news agency, after first reporting a man had hurled a home-made grenade, later said a firecracker had been set off by a man who was “excited” to see the president.
There was no official word on who was behind the bang and no claim of responsibility.
Speculation about possible culprits ranged from foreign intelligence services to Iranian ethnic militants and other domestic opponents of Ahmadinejad.
