DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: The new governor of a northwestern Iranian province found himself slapped in the face by an angry man during his inauguration Saturday.
It was an unusual breach of security in the Islamic Republic during a ceremony attended by the country’s interior minister.
A motive for the attack in Iran’s Eastern Azerbaijan province remained unclear, though it targeted a new provincial governor who once served in the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and reportedly had been kidnapped at one point by rebel forces in Syria. One report referred to it as a personal dispute.
The new governor, Brig. Gen. Abedin Khorram, had taken the podium in the provincial capital of Tabriz when the man strode out from offstage and immediately swung at the official. Video aired by state television recorded the gathered crowd gasping in shock, the sound of the slap echoing on the sound system. It took several seconds before plainclothes security forces reached him.
They dragged the man off through a side door, knocking down a curtain. Others rushed up, knocking into each other.
Later footage showed Khorram return to the stage and speak to the unsettled crowd, now all standing up.
“I do not know him of course but you should know that, although I did not want to say it, when I was in Syria I would get whipped by the enemy 10 times a day and would be beaten up,” he said. “More than 10 times, they would hold a loaded gun to my head. I consider him on a par with those enemies but forgive him.”
Another man on stage shouted: “Death to the hypocrites!” That’s a common chant used against exiled opposition groups and others who oppose the Islamic Republic. Others cried out that Khorram was a “pro-supreme leader governor.”
Though Khorram said he didn’t know the man, the state-run IRNA news agency later described the attacker as a member of the Guard’s Ashoura Corps, which Khorram had overseen. IRNA described the attack as coming due to “personal reasons,” without elaborating.
Later, the semiofficial Fars news agency said the man who slapped the governor had been upset that his wife received a coronavirus vaccination from a male nurse, as opposed to a female nurse.
Khorram had been recently nominated by Iran’s hard-line parliament to serve as the provincial governor under the government of President Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khorram had been among 48 Iranians held hostage in 2013 in Syria, later released for some 2,130 rebels, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank that long has been critical of Iran. Iran had referred to those held as Shiite religious pilgrims. A State Department spokesperson at the time called it “just another example of how Iran continues to provide guidance, expertise, personnel (and) technical capabilities to the Syrian regime.”
The incident also comes amid anger in Iran over its precarious economic situation despite its support abroad for regional militias and others, including Syrian President Bashar Assad. Iran’s economy has been hammered since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
Iran provincial governor slapped in a rare security breach
https://arab.news/y2a8p
Iran provincial governor slapped in a rare security breach
- A motive for the attack in Iran's Eastern Azerbaijan province remained unclear
- Later Fars news agency said the man had been upset that his wife received a coronavirus vaccination from a male nurse, as opposed to a female nurse
Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of arming rebels in escalating war of words
- The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea
- The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian police said they had seized thousands of rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to rebels in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, an allegation Eritrea dismissed as a falsehood intended to justify starting a war.
The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea, longstanding foes who reached a peace deal in 2018 that has since given way to renewed threats and acrimony.
The police said in a statement late on Wednesday they had seized 56,000 rounds of ammunition and arrested two suspects this week in the Amhara region, where Fano rebels have waged an insurgency since 2023.
“The preliminary investigation conducted on the two suspects who were caught red-handed has confirmed that the ammunition was sent by the Shabiya government,” the statement said, using a term for Eritrea’s ruling party.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told Reuters that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party (PP) was looking for a pretext to attack.
“The PP regime is floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years,” he said.
In an interview earlier this week with state-run media, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said the Prosperity Party had declared war on his country. He said Eritrea did not want war, but added: “We know how to defend our nation.”
The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998, five years after Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia. They signed a historic agreement to normalize relations in 2018 that won Ethiopia’s Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Eritrean troops then fought in support of Ethiopia’s army during a 2020-22 civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
But relations soured after Asmara was frozen out of the peace deal that ended that conflict. Since then, Eritrea has bristled at repeated public declarations by Abiy that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access — comments many in Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, view as an implicit threat of military action.
Abiy has said Ethiopia does not seek conflict with Eritrea and wants to address the issue of sea access through dialogue.
