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A homemade bomb discovered on board an Iranian plane has been defused, semi-official news agencies report.

In the latest incident, the plane was also flying from a border province - this time, an area that borders Iraq, and has also had problems with restive minorities

Three men convicted of bombing an Iranian mosque two days ago have been publicly executed, state media says.The bombing killed at least 19 people during evening prayers in the south-east city of Zahedan on Thursday. The three men, who were hanged on Saturday morning near the mosque, were already in custody before the attack. One Iranian official had earlier accused the US of hiring mercenaries to carry out the bombing - a claim dismissed by Washington. The men were arrested before Thursday's bombing in connection with other attacks, including a 2007 attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guard in which 11 people died.

Part of a Shia mosque, Amir al-Mohini, was destroyed in Zahedan, a mainly Sunni Muslim city. A Sunni militant group had claimed responsibility, with Abdel Raouf Rigi, described as a spokesman for the Jundallah group, telling Saudi-owned TV channel Al-Arabiya that a suicide bomber had targeted a secret meeting of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards inside the mosque.

The Turks, who always used to complain to their Western allies about their rough neighborhood, apparently no longer have any enemies in the east. Turkey's old rival Russia has since become its most important energy and trading partner. Syria and Iraq, two countries with which Ankara has in the past been on the brink of war, are now friends of Turkey, and relations are even improving with Armenia. The Arabs, who never truly took to the successors of the Ottomans, now look with admiration to what they call the "Turkish model," a dynamic, open country that has a better handle on its problems than they do.

When Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed office in 2003, he planned to lead Turkey into the European Union. But Europe was unmoved by this vision, and it has also lost much of its appeal within Turkey. According to Germany's Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think tank linked to the center-left Social Democratic Party, as the Europeans have become weary of expansion, Turkey has lost interest in joining the EU. Indeed, what Erdogan meant when he spoke of Turkey's "alternative" to becoming an EU member is becoming increasingly clear.

Critics and supporters alike describe this new course as "neo-Ottomanism." Ankara remains formally committed to its European ambitions. However, frustrated by the open rejection with which it has long been met in Paris, Vienna and Berlin, and which it has been facing once again during the EU election campaign, Turkey is focusing increasingly on its role as a peacekeeping power in a region it either ruled or dominated for centuries.

On the eve of what looks like the country's most significant election in a decade, Ahmadinejad was in classic attack mode yesterday, using his final campaign rally to lambast Zionism and imperialists and accuse the three other candidates of using "Hitler's methods, to repeat lies and accusations until ­everyone believes them".

In a strange piece of political repetition, Ahmadinejad's slogan, courtesy of Barack Obama, is "Yes We Can". Even opponents admit it would be rash to assume he cannot win four more years. His common touch and defiance of the US and Israel go down well in the countryside and small towns, and with many poor and traditional people everywhere.

Ahmadinejad still has strong support of the religious establishment and many of the poor, both inside and outside of the capital. "Our supporters are many and we don't have to gather in the streets like this," Hossein Ghorbani, a taxi driver in Tehran, said.

"I support Ahmadinejad because he is not stealing and is with the people. He cares about us."

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former Iranian president and a powerful figure in Iran's clerical leadership, on Tuesday urged the country's supreme leader to take action against Ahmadinejad over his remarks about the reformists. He wrote to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that millions of Iranians had witnessed "mis-statements and fabrications" in a televised election debate last week, when Ahmadinejad accused Rafsanjani of corruption. "I am expecting you to resolve this position in order to extinguish the fire, whose smoke can be seen in the atmosphere, and to foil dangerous plots," he said in the letter published by the semi-official Mehr news agency. Fourteen high-ranking clerics from the city of Qom, the supreme leader's base, echoed Rafsanjani's remarks, expressing "deep concern andregret" that Iran's image had been harmed in the debate. "Accusing those who were not present at that debate and could not defend themselves is against our religion," they said in a statement.

In an unprecedented public appeal, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani urged the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to rein in the president, who in the debate last week accused Rafsanjani of corruption.

The outburst came as supporters of Ahmadinejad's most serious rival – the leading reformist contender Mir Hossein Mousavi – kept up the pressure with a second day of mass rallies.

Khamenei, who had previously backed Ahmadinejad, last week also rebuked the president for his remarks in the debate.

When he was first elected president in 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad showed his fealty to the leader, gently bending over and kissing his hand. On Saturday, the leader demonstrated his own enthusiasm for the re-elected president, hailing the outcome as “a divine blessing” even before the official three-day challenge period had passed. On Sunday, Mr. Ahmadinejad flaunted his achievement by mounting a celebration rally in the heart of an opposition neighborhood of Tehran

In many ways, his victory is the latest and perhaps final clash in a battle for power and influence that has lasted decades between Mr. Khamenei and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who, while loyal to the Islamic form of government, wanted a more pragmatic approach to the economy, international relations and social conditions at home. Mr. Rafsanjani aligned himself and his family closely with the main reform candidate in this race, Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister who advocated greater freedom — in particular, greater freedom for women — and a more conciliatory face to the West. Another former president and pragmatist, Mohammed Khatami, had also thrown in heavily with Mr. Moussavi.

The three men, combined with widespread public support and disillusionment with Mr. Ahmadinejad, posed a challenge to the authority of the supreme leader and his allies, political analysts said. The elite Revolutionary Guards and a good part of the intelligence services “feel very much threatened by the reformist movement,” said a political analyst who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. “They feel that the reformists will open up to the West and be lenient on the nuclear issue,” he said. “It is a confrontation of two ways of thinking, the revolutionary and the internationalist. It is a question of power.”

Iran's supreme leader gave his blessing to the outcome of the country's presidential election Sunday despite widespread allegations of fraud, calling the results "a divine miracle," the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

In a letter published on Moussavi's Web site, the candidate said he has asked the election authority -- Iran's Guardian Council -- to nullify Friday's results. There were conflicting reports on whether Moussavi had been placed under house arrest, but in a statement Iranian police said that the candidate was not under arrest.

Another opposition candidate said he has asked Iran's Guardian Council -- a body of top clerics and judges that supervises elections -- to investigate. Former parliament speaker Mehdi Karrubi, who finished in third place with a single-digit percentage of the vote in the official results, asked supporters "to find solutions through legal and civic institutions," according to his political movement's newspaper.

According to a report by the now-banned website Rooyeh.com, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts, had meetings in the city of Qom, with some of the high ranking clerics including the plenipotentiary representative of Grand Ayatollah Sistani. The dates of the meetings are not specified

According to this report, an anonymous source claimed that Rafsanjani had reminded the Ayatollahs of how Ayatollah Khomeini managed such crises in the early days of the Islamic revolution. The source also claimed that half of the Assembly of Experts were supporting the idea of declaring a “leadership counsel” (instead of a one person leadership)

Although the president has the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), the clerics still have considerable power over the country's charitable foundations (Bonyads). These multibillion dollar business organizations don't report their income or pay taxes. They report directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Their participation in the economy is crucial. They could make life difficult for Ahmadinejad's presidency by increasing their business clout in areas where the IRGC is trying to muscle in. These industries include energy, construction and the import/export sector. Last year, these clerics scored a major victory. Bonyade Mostazafin (Charity foundation for the dispossessed) was allowed to buy and sell oil, allowing them to compete directly with Iran's National Oil Company. This raised the fury of Ahmadinejad's supporters. As means of checking Ahmadinejad's power, they could expand further into this sector, or compete in the lucrative construction sector. These companies also have huge financial assets. These can be used to finance new businesses which compete directly with the IRGC.

They could also side with Ayatollah Rafsanjani. It is an accepted fact that Rafsanjani financed part of Mousavi's campaign. This obviously dented Ahmadinejad's popularity. So much so, apparently, that Ayatollah Khamenei felt compelled to assist the president by allowing fraud. Rafsanjani is already a millionaire many times over. Should the clergy start helping him financially, using his political muscle in the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, he could further challenge Ahmadinejad politically.

“I see the country’s political elite more divided than anytime in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Rafsanjani, one of the republic’s founding fathers, the man who made Khameini Supreme Leader, is now in the opposition.”

“I see the country’s political elite more divided than anytime in the Islamic Republic’s 30-year history,” said Karim Sadjadpour, a political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Rafsanjani, one of the republic’s founding fathers, the man who made Khameini Supreme Leader, is now in the opposition.”

It seems clear that the 75-year-old is at the center of a fight for the future of the Islamic Republic. Mr. Rafsanjani’s vision of the state, and his position in his nation’s history, is being challenged by a new political elite led by Mr. Ahmadinejad and younger radicals who fought Iraq during the eight-year war.

A political party affiliated with Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the former president and key member of the Iranian regime, on Sunday called on Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the opposition leader, to form a “political bloc” that would pursue a long-term campaign to undermine the “illegitimate” government. Hossein Marashi, spokesman for the Kargozaran, stayed clear of directly challenging the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but told the Financial Times in a telephone interview that Mr Moussavi was now the leader of an opposition that was not without options.

“With the lack of legitimacy of the Ahmadi-Nejad government, sooner or later the country’s management will face various crises,” he said. “Mr Moussavi should set up an official political front which can embrace the defenders of the real Islamic republic . . . against those who are distorting it and are represented by Mr Ahmadi-Nejad.”

Adding to the tension, footage on the Facebook networking site showed a young woman supporter of Mr Moussavi being shot in the chest during the Saturday protests. The graphic footage, which was widely viewed, showed the woman dying in front of her father who desperately tried to save her.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, has won a second term in office after a bitterly fought election, Iran's interior ministry has said.Ahmadinejad took 62.63 per cent of the vote, crushing Mir Hossein Mousavi, his main rival, who got just 33.75 per cent, according to results released on Saturday.

The Guardian Council, a powerful body of clerics which oversees Iran's constitution, is still to release its count, but there seemed little doubt about the result after Ayatollah Ali Khameini, the supreme leader, congratulated Ahmadinejad.

Mousavi, who had himself declared victory just moments after the polls closed on Friday, described the decision to declare Ahmadinejad as the winner as "treason to the votes of the people".  "I personally strongly protest the many obvious violations and I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade," he said in a statement. "The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny."

"If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held directly responsible," Khamenei declared in his first address to the nation since the upheaval began. "The result of the election comes from the ballot box, not from the street," the white-bearded cleric told huge crowds thronging Tehran University and surrounding streets for Friday prayers. "Today the Iranian nation needs calm." He said any election complaints should be raised through legal channels. "I will not succumb to illegal innovation," he said, in an apparent reference to the street protests, which have few precedents in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history.

"It's a wrong impression that by using street protests as a pressure tool, they can compel officials to accept their illegal demands. This would be the start of a dictatorship," Khamenei said.

"American officials' remarks about human rights and limitations on people are not acceptable because they have no idea about human rights after what they have done in Afghanistan and Iraq and other parts of the world. We do not need advice on human rights from them," he said.

The political chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guard has warned reformists in the country against seeking what he called a "velvet revolution", vowing that it would be "nipped in the bud".

In a statement on its website, Javani drew parallels between Mousavi's campaign and the "velvet revolution'' that led to the 1989 overthrow of the communist government in then Czechoslovakia.

"There are many indications that some extremist [reformist] groups, have designed a colourful revolution ... using a specific colour for the first time in an election," the statement said.

Declaring results that no one in their right mind can believe, and despite all the evidence of crafted results, and to counter people protestations, in front of the eyes of the same nation who carried the weight of a revolution and 8 years of war, in front of the eyes of local and foreign reporters, attacked the children of the people with astonishing violence. And now they are attempting a purge, arresting intellectuals, political opponents and Scientifics.

I ask the police and army personals not to “sell their religion”, and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before god.