Ahmadinejad Assassination Attempt??

This is a breaking news story. Newest Updates are at the top. Please stay tuned for more information:

UPDATE 17:19 GMT: According to Enduring America:  ABC and Mehr news are now reporting that a handmade explosive device was exploded on Pasteur Street in Hamedan, some distance from Ahmadinejad’s car. No injuries were reported.

So now the focus of the story changes significantly. Khabar Online, a conservative and state-licensed news agency, was the first organization to report this news story. Apparently, this may be interpreted as another jab at Ahmadinejad from the conservatives. Khabar Online has been consistently following the news stories about prominent Iranian Principalist lawmaker Ali Mottahari and his growing discontent with the Ahmadinejad administration.

In other words, Khabar Online has become an organization that is a mouthpiece for conservatives critical of Ahmadinejad. This may be an example of just how far these disgruntled conservatives will go to embarrass Ahmadinejad.

Stay tuned for more on this angle of the story.

UPDATE 15:38 GMT: Al Arabiya television is reporting that several people were injured and the alleged attacked was immediately arrested following an attack where an explosive device (either a grenade or a celebratory firecracker) hit a car carrying journalists and Presidential staff.

15:22 GMT:

This morning Khabar Online, a state controlled media outlet, reported that Ahmadinejad’s convoy in Hamedan (western Iran) had been attacked by a grenade as it passed through the town between the airport and a location where he was supposed to be giving a speech. Shortly thereafter, at approximately 09:00 GMT, Dubai based Al Arabiya television labeled the attack an assassination attempt and mentioned that this was confirmed by Ahmadinejad’s office.

According to Enduring America, shortly thereafter these reports were softened by the Iranian state-run press:

UPDATE 0925 GMT: Press TV has broken its silence: ”An informed source in Iran’s presidential office has rejected as false the reports of grenade attack on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad”, denying the claims of “foreign news sources”. (There is no reference to Khabar Online, which has carried the story in Iran. The reformist Parleman News is also running Khabar’s account, as is the conservative Aftab News.)

UPDATE 1015 GMT: Fars News has now recognised the incident, albeit as the explosion of a “homemade firecracker” as crowds welcomed Ahmaidinejad.

According to the BBC World Radio, at one point the reports were that this was some sort of flashbang grenade.

There is a great deal of confusion about the validity of these reports. There are also unconfirmed reports of injuries in the crowd. Foreign journalists are banned from reporting, and all other news agencies are state controlled, so once the government decides how they will spin a particular news story it becomes very unlikely that independent news will emerge from the media.

So what do we know?

Hamedan is located about 250 miles southwest of Iran. It is not known as a location that is particularly hostile to Ahmadinejad, nor is it a home base for terrorist organizations. Jundollah, a Sunni-Muslim group responsible for several terrorist attacks in Iran, is largely located in southeastern Iran. It is unlikely that their network extends this far west, as the majority of their support is among the growing population of refugees from the war in Pakistan and Afghanistan. PMOI (the People’s Mujahideen of Iran) claims that it has ceased its military campaign against Iran since 2001, and they have actually been removed from the Terrorist Watch List in Europe in the last year.  The Kurdish groups, including the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) and the PKK are both both possible suspects, as their conflict with Iran has been growing in intensity over the last several months and they are located in the west, but they are not known to have a heavy presence in Hamedan.

However, all of these groups are (or were) professional organizations with long histories of successful attacks. It is unlikely that any of their work could be confused with a “firecracker.” Also, in the past when any of these groups do launch an attack, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) usually takes the attack as an opportunity to accuse the United States and Britain of being behind the attack.

Media Spin?

Initial reports from the state-run media sources inside Iran are often more accurate in their initial reports and less accurate as the government leaders decide how they want to spin the news. Recently, the IRI news agencies carried a full statement, a fatwa issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and then later pulled the statement off of their website as some inside the government considered the statement a tactical error. This incident showed the confusion inside the government on how to best portray unity and strength, but it also provides us an example on how news coverage and media spin converge inside the Islamic Republic.

Conclusion:

News on the ground is unreliable at the moment. Hamedan has not been a hotbed of activity, and as a result non-official news isn’t spreading as fast as it would in Tehran or other major cities in northern Iran. As of now, however, it is unlikely that a major terrorist organization has launched an attack against Ahmadinejad. It is still possible that the economic dissatisfaction has inspired an amateurish attack.

We will keep you posted as news comes in.