Rasa News Agency, which belongs to the religious school of Qum -the mullahÂ’s Vatican in Iran- reports that a group of unidentified gunmen shot and killed Hesham Saymary of the Alavi section in Ahavz, southern Iran, an area where many Iranian Arabs live. The incident took place last Sunday night at about 10:00 PM local time.
According to the information, gunmen were outside SaymaryÂ’s home waiting for him to arrive, and called him as he was about to enter. As soon as he turned to answer they shot him three times, causing his instant death.Although the dead cleric is a member of the Iranian Arab population of Ahvaz, the regime blames both a small Arab-speaking separatist group from Ahvaz and the Wahabbis -the religious sect that Ben Laden belongs to- for the killing.
A report in Baztab, a website owned by a close friend and ally of ex-president Rafsanjani, Mohsen Rezaei, called the group “an Arab separatist movement”. The Islamic regime is well aware of the Iranians’ feelings against separatism and therefore it was putting the blame on the “bad guys” no matter what the reality may be.
Suprisingly, while doing some research for this story I could not find any report in English. Is this another attempt by the regime to keep this assassination low key and prevent the unrest from spreading? Mullah Hesham is the third senior figure in the Iranian regime killied in the past two months by unknown revolutionaries, and authorities are again trying to play it down.
Interestingly, the other two assassinations took place too close to Tehran for the regime to blame the separatists. So who did it? Are there more groups taking action? Definitely something to think about.