AFP: Iran’s opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was surrounded while in the house of a senior cleric in the holy city of Qom on Sunday by regime supporters who also attacked his car, an opposition website said.
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran’s opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi was surrounded while in the house of a senior cleric in the holy city of Qom on Sunday by regime supporters who also attacked his car, an opposition website said.
Karroubi had travelled to Qom in central Iran for a mourning ceremony and later called on Ayatollah Yousef Sanaei at his home when “forces linked to the power (regime) surrounded the house,” Kaleme.com said.
“Based on an informed source in Qom, the forces are still surrounding the house and are chanting slogans against them.”
Karroubi’s son, Hossein, told the website that the regime supporters also used clubs and chains to attack his father’s car which was parked outside Sanaie’s house.
“I talked to my father’s bodyguard who told me that he was disturbed” by the attack, he said without elaborating whether the bodyguard had been injured.
“Our car is sturdy, but it has been completely destroyed which shows the fury with which it was attacked,” Hossein said.
He said Karroubi was still holed up inside Sanaie’s house with supporters of the regime surrounding the building.
“The way the group gathered indicates that they were organised and properly commanded,” Hossein said.
Kaleme.com said Karroubi intended to meet both Sanaei and Hassan Khomeini, grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic revolution.
Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi, the other opposition leader, spearhead the opposition movement which continues to reject Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election to the presidency 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 by hardliners, according to opposition websites.
In December, around 1,000 members of the feared Basij Islamic militia attacked Sanaei’s offices in Qom, the reformist website Norooznews.ir reported at the time.
