Iranian security officials defused a handmade bomb on board a domestic flight, officials said yesterday, the latest violence the run-up to Iran’s presidential election less than two weeks away.
The incident occurred on a Kish Air flight headed to Tehran from Ahvaz in the west of the country near the border with Iraq, the Fars news agency reported.
“Last night, 15 minutes after the plane with 131 passengers took off, flight security guards found a handmade bomb placed in the lavatory,” Fars said. “The plane landed immediately at Ahvaz airport and the bomb was defused.”
“Security officials of the Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guards acted well and the incident caused no casualties,” Reza Jafarzadeh, spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, told the state broadcaster.
The passengers were calmed and the plane continued the flight to Tehran, Kish Air manager Reza Nakhjavani told the ILNA news agency.
It was the latest unrest to shake Iran in the run-up to the country’s presidential election on June 12, while Ahvaz itself has witnessed several deadly incidents in recent years.
On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed 25 worshippers and wounded 125 in a Shiite mosque in Zahedan in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The province, which is home to Iran’s Baluch minority who adhere to Sunni Islam, has been the scene of a deadly insurgency by a Sunni rebel group which is strongly opposed to the government of predominantly Shiite Iran.
Iran on Saturday hanged three men in public accused of involvement in the mosque bombing, just 48 hours after the incident.
The mosque attack was reminiscent of a similar outbreak of violence just days before Iran’s last presidential election in 2005 which brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS