Iran regime backers circle opposition leader

TEHRAN: Iran’s opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was surrounded by regime supporters in the house of a senior cleric in the Shiite holy city of Qom on Sunday, an opposition website said.

Karroubi travelled to Qom, central Iran, for a mourning ceremony and later called upon Ayatollah Yousef Sanaei at his home when “forces linked to the power (regime) surrounded the house,” Kalame.com said.

“Based on an informed source in Qom, the forces are still surrounding the house and are chanting slogans against them.”

Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi continue to spearhead the opposition movement which rejects President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election last year.

Sanaei, who has followers across Iran and abroad, has himself been a strong supporter of the opposition movement and often come under attack from Iran’s hardliners, according to opposition websites.

In December, around 1,000 members of Iran’s Basij Islamic militia attacked his offices in Qom, the reformist website Norooznews.ir reported at the time.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 14th, 2010.