'Mossad, CIA Responsible for Samarra Blast'

Iran's leaders say that Americans and Israelis were the only people to benefit from the attacks on the Samarra Mosque's Golden Dome. How did they benefit? According to this article from Iran's Tehran Times, the 'occupation forces' benefit because the resulting Muslim disunity will 'provoke civil war in Muslim countries,' prolonging America's presence in Iraq.

Tehran Times Political Desk

February 25, 2006

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TEHRAN: The terrible crime committed by the terrorists who bombed the holy shrines of the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, Imam Hadi and Imam Hassan Askari, north of Baghdad in Samara on Wednesday, are intended to foment religious war amongst the Iraqi people.

Mohammad Khatami, former Iranian president and head of the Institute for Dialogue among Civilizations, expressed regret over the bombings and said that regardless of who committed these crimes, the blasts will serve to increase Muslim unity. He also agreed that the Samara bombings were designed to target the unity and sovereignty of the innocent Iraqi nation.

The speaker of the Iranian Majlis [Parliament], Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, said that during recent years, the awareness of the Iraqi nation has neutralized a great number of conspiracies of this kind, and he expressed the hope that Iraqis will once again prevent a division between Shiites and Sunnis.

Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi said the blasts were an organized crime against Muslims. Shirazi told a gathering of people in the city of Qom on Thursday that the main policy of the global arrogance [America] was to weaken the roots of Islam and trigger civil war in Muslim countries. He added that in the correct circumstances, all Islamic sects should maintain their unity.

Ayatollah Mohammad Imami Kashani, who leads Friday prayers in Tehran, said that insulting the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and destroying the holy shrines of Imams Hadi and Hassan Askari fit right in with the conspiracies of the enemies of Islam.

He also said that the main purpose of these incidents is to create division between Sunnis and Shiites, adding that the Mossad and the CIA were the real organizers of the Samara blasts.

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, in a speech in the central city of Shahr-e Kord on Thursday, said "These desperate acts have been committed by a bunch of Zionists and failed occupiers."

Prosecutor General Ghorban-ali Dorri Najaf Abadi noted that the perpetrators of the recent blasts in Samara intend to trigger a psychological war against Islamic nations and create division among them. Abadi added that it is hard to know who conducted the bombings, but one cannot absolve the Zionists and the United States of the charges.

Issuing a statement on Thursday, the Supreme Leader’s representative in Khorasan Razavi Province, Ayatollah Va’ez Tabasi, also condemned the attack. He said that these blasts were organized to create division.

But the bombing cannot hinder the formation of an Islamic government in Iraq.

Deputy Interior Minister Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr said that the blasts were a sign of the weakness of the enemies of Islam, also agreeing that these terrorist attacks will not hinder the formation of an Islamic government in Iraq.

Dozens of governmental and non-governmental organizations have also issued statements condemning the terrorist attacks in Samara, and are calling on the Iraqi nation to maintain its unity and to frustrate their enemies.

The Iraqi government, meanwhile, announced stepped-up security measures, including a ban on entering or leaving Baghdad and the deployment of armed forces into tense areas.

Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim said on Friday that the Sunni Arabs of Iraq were not responsible for the bombing of holy shrine.

"I stress that the bombing of the shrine was not an act of the Sunnis of Iraq, but the Zarqawists and the Saddamists," said Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the leading party in the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance.

He was referring to supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, and of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

In the December elections, the alliance won 128 of the 275 seats in the Iraqi Parliament and is currently holding talks with other political factions to form a coalition government.

Hakim also called for unity between the Shiites and the Sunnis.

"The bombing of the shrine hurts us and provokes powerful feelings, but the burning of mosques and attacks on innocents afterwards have also hurt us tremendously," he said in a statement.

"We strongly denounce the attacks on Sunni mosques, and these incidents further emphasize the need for unity to get rid of the terrorists."

Dhafer al-Ani, spokesman for the biggest Sunni Arab bloc in Parliament, praised al-Hakim's statement, calling it "a step on the road to healing the wounds."

Several joint Sunni-Shiite prayer services were announced for Friday, including one at the Askariya Shrine [the Samarra Mosque]. But security forces turned away about 700 people, virtually all of them Sunni, who showed up for the service.

VIDEO FROM IRAN: NULEAR FACILITIES SAFE, DEEP UNDERGROUND

Jaam-e Jam2, Iran: excerpts from interviews with the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, Feb. 21, 00:02:52, MEMRI

"They are threatening to bomb [our nuclear facilities]. Go ahead and bomb us. We will rebuild them."

Gholam-Reza Aghazadeh, Iranian Nuclear Official