Pre-polls bombings kill 8 in Iran

At least four women were among those killed in the explosions in Ahvaz, capital of the southwestern Khuzestan province which borders Iraq. The blasts were the deadliest explosions in Iran in more than a decade.

Four blasts targetted several public buildings in Ahvaz, an ethnic-Arab majority city close to the border with Iraq and capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province.

The province's deputy governor, Gholam Reza Shariati, told state television that the unidentified attackers were trying to "attack the territorial integrity of the country and damage the election process".

Television pictures showed the blast sites with heavily damaged buildings and blood on the ground. The force of the explosions also damaged cars in the streets. Shariati said 36 people, including eight police officers, were injured.

Following the first three blasts, experts had tried to defuse a fourth bomb but failed, and it exploded.

Interior ministry spokesman Jahanbaksh Khanjani told AFP one of the blasts -- the first to strike Iranian soil in several years -- was a car bombing outside the Ahvaz prefecture.

The "strong explosions" occurr-ed between 9:00 am and 11:00 am (0430 to 0630 GMT). State television pictures showed the ground around the blast site strewn with broken glass, rubble and pools of blood.

"One of the bombs was inside a car parked outside the prefecture," Mohammad Kianoush-Rad, a former parliament deputy, told AFP by telephone from the city.

Ahvaz was the site of two days of violent demonstrations in April after reports circulated of an alleged plan to decrease the proportion of Arabs in the area. Officials at the time confirmed one death but opposition groups said more than 20 demonstrators had been killed. Some 250 were arrested.

The protests were sparked after copies of a letter allegedly signed by Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi circulated in the area. The letter ordered the relocation of non-Arabs to the Ahvaz to make them the majority population. Abtahi denied writing the letter.

Arabs make up about 3 percent of Iran's population, Persians account for 51 percent and other minorities comprise the remainder.

Bomb explosions have been a rare occurrence in Iran since the end of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.