15 dead in Iran military base blast

TEHRAN – A massive explosion hit a Revolutionary Guards base just west of the Iranian capital on Saturday, killing 15 people and injuring at least 12 others, officials said.

“The number of martyrs in today’s explosion in one of our ammunition depots stands at 15,” commander Ramezan Sharif, a spokesman for the elite unit, told state television.

Sharif did not disclose how many people were injured, but said some were in “critical condition.”

An emergency official, Majid Khaled, quoted by the ILNA news agency, said 12 people had been taken to nearby hospitals.

The explosion shortly after 1 pm (0930 GMT) hit the base in Bid Ganeh, near the town of Malard on the outskirts of Tehran, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city center, according to media reports.

It shattered the windows of residential neighbourhoods in the western suburbs of Tehran, witnesses told Agence France-Presse. It was heard in the city center.

“Initial investigations show the blast occurred as ammunition was being moved,” Sharif said.

The deputy head of the national security commission, Esmaeel Kosari, said parliament would open a probe into the blast, the ISNA news agency reported.

Hossein Garousi, a lawmaker from the area, ruled out the blast being the result of “an act of sabotage or in any way political.” He told parliament’s website the blast had destroyed “a large part of the ammunition depot.”

Helicopters and ambulances were dispatched to the area, ISNA quoted an official at Tehran’s medical emergency centre, Hassan Abbasi, as saying.

Earlier, a Mehr news agency reporter said two hours after the blast, a fire was still raging, and that there were huge traffic jams on roads leading to the base.

In October 2010, a blast at a Guards ammunition storage in the western city of Khorramabad killed 18 of its members and left dozens injured.

Set up after the Islamic revolution of 1979 to defend it against internal and external threats, the Guards have emerged as a powerful military and economic force in Iran in recent years.

The Guards and some of its industrial wings have been targeted by international sanctions for their role in Iran’s controversial pursuit of nuclear energy and for involvement in the crackdown that followed the disputed presidential election in 2009.