One Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed and another injured in identical bomb attacks in downtown Tehran, according to local news reports 29 November. Majid Shahriari, a member of  Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University’s nuclear research faculty, was killed when a motorcycle rider attached a bomb to Shahriari’s car and rode off. Fereydoun Abbasi and his wife were injured in a separate attack. Iranian officials quickly blamed Israeli and US intelligence for the attacks.

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed by a bomb in a similar way outside his home in January 2010. Iran suspects foreign agents are trying to disrupt its secret nuclear energy programme.

Links to other sites: Al Bawaba, Al-Jazeera, Haaretz

A day after a bomb ripped through a crowded popular market in the old town of Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, and killed over a hundred people, mainly women and children, rescuers were still pulling bodies from the rubble. Over 200 people were wounded  in the attack. It was the worst such attack since 2007, and no one has claimed responsibility for it yet, although the Taliban denies responsibility.

October has been the bloodiest month in Pakistan, with casualties from bombings around the country reaching 300 dead and many more wounded. Most believe the bomb attacks are in retaliation for the Pakistani army’s ongoing incursion into South Waziristan,  a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban. Some commentators believe this latest attack could turn the people against the Taliban. Al-Jazeera, AP, BBC

Iran says it accuses the US, Great Britain and Pakistan of involvement in the deadly suicide-bomb attacks in its Sistan-Baluchistan province on Sunday 18 October which killed 42 people, including several senior military commanders of the Revolutionary Guards. Suspicions were aroused because of the detailed intelligence reportedly needed in order to reach their targets. The US and the UK have denied invlovement. Iran has vowed a “crushing” response.

Iran has accused Jundullah, a Sunni radical group, of carrying out the attack, and accuses Pakistan of harbouring the leader of the group. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called his Pakistani counterpart to ask for help in arresting the group’s leaders, who he says are based in Pakistan. The group has carried out attacks in Iran before, and claims to represent the rights of Sunni Muslims in mostly Shiite Iran. BBC, The Times