Seven killed in Tehran as anti-Ahmadinejad protest

Tires, dustbins and motorbikes were set ablaze by protestors as hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in a public outpouring of anger reminiscent of the days of the Islamic revolution in 1979.

State radio said at least seven people were killed when "thugs" attacked and vandalized government buildings at the end of the rally, which had been banned by the authorities as an illegal gathering.

"A military post was attacked with the intention of looting its weapons. Unfortunately, seven of our citizens were killed and a number of them injured," it said.

One source told AFP the emergency services department had information that eight people were killed, while the coroner’s office said it had registered no deaths in connection with Monday's rally.

The mounting protests against Ahmadinejad’s re-election, in a vote that his main defeated challenger Mousavi branded a rigged "charade," are the worst unrest in Tehran in a decade.

In one incident late Monday, one man was reportedly shot in the head outside a local base of the Basij Islamic volunteer militia, which was set on fire.

Pictures showed armed men, wearing helmets and in civilian clothes, pointing guns at the crowds from the rooftop of the base.

In the face of the unrest, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has order a probe into the vote-rigging allegations laid by former wartime premier Mousavi, who had declared himself the victor on polling day Friday.

Violence flared after Mousavi appeared in public Monday for the first time since the election that has highlighted deep divisions in Iran as it grapples with a struggling economy and a standoff with the West over its nuclear works.

"God willing, we will take back our rights," Mousavi shouted from the roof of a car amid a sea of hundreds of thousand of Iranians, young and old, who packed into central Tehran despite the ban.

One policeman said between 1.5 and two million demonstrators, some wearing the green of Mousavi’s campaign color, had swarmed into central Tehran.

Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, a conservative rival to Ahmadinejad, blamed the interior minister for attacks on civilians and university students.

INTERNATIONAL BACKLASH

Iran is facing an international backlash over its crackdown against the opposition protestors and the election itself, which returned the combative Ahmadinejad to another four years in power.

In his first public comments since the election, Obama called on Iranian leaders to respect free speech and democracy, saying "it is up to Iranians to make a decision about who Iran’s leaders will be."

"I think its important that moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views," he said.

Obama, who has called for dialogue with the Islamic republic after three decades of hostility, said he was "deeply troubled" by the violence and would stick to tough diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear drive.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon has called for the will of the Iranian people to be "fully respected."

European governments also complained about the tactics used against protesters and added their voices to U.S. doubt over the election outcome, with the EU calling on Tehran to launch a probe.

"The regime must address the serious questions which have been asked about the conduct of the Iranian elections," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier described the action of the security forces as "completely unacceptable," while French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he wanted "full light" to be shed on the vote.

Ahmadinejad himself was in Russia -- a key ally which is helping Iran build a nuclear power plant -- for a security summit being hosted by the Kremlin.

"The issue of the elections in Iran is an internal affair of the Iranian people," Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters.

The election outcome dented Western hopes of a change in domestic and foreign policy of the oil-rich OPEC member state, with analysts warning that the country could find itself further isolated from the outside world.

Iran’s election supervisory body the Guardians Council is expected to make a decision in 10 days after Khamenei told it "to precisely examine" Mousavi’s complaints.

IRANIAN AUTHORITIES DEFIANT

Monday's demonstration came a day after Ahmadinejad addressed a vast victory rally in Tehran to defend the results, saying the people of Iran had triumphed against the "world arrogance" (the West).

The authorities have warned that they would nip any "velvet revolution" in the bud and police said on Sunday they had rounded up 170 people over the protests, including a number of reformist leaders.

There has also been a crack down on local and foreign media, with Mousavi’s own newspaper reportedly suspended and international outlets reporting the arrest and harassment of their journalists.

Some telephone, texting and Internet services have also been disrupted, and protestors have been turning to Twitter to spread word about the dramatic events.

Photo: AFP