Iran arrests some 50 for blasts in oil province

TEHRAN, Mar 9 (Reuters) Iran has arrested more than 50 people for deadly bombings in a mainly Arab restive southwestern province, a top government official said today.

Khuzestan, the heartland of Iran's oil industry, has simmered with unrest among the province's mostly Arab population for almost a year. Iran has blamed Britain, which has troops close by in Iraq, for fomenting the instability.

''The security forces have identified and arrested more than 50 people involved in the recent bombings in Khuzestan,'' the official IRNA news agency quoted Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei as saying.

''Those arrested will be handed over to judiciary officials soon,'' he said.

Five people were killed during several days of anti-government protests in Khuzestan in April last year and 21 have been killed in three separate bomb attacks since then.

Officials have blamed the violence on exiled separatist groups operating from neighbouring Iraq. Britain denies supporting the Arab rebels.

Mohseni-Ejei did not say for which bombings the suspects were arrested, but said almost all of those behind the unrest and bombings had been identified.

''Some of them were arrested and the others will be arrested,'' Mohseni-Ejei said.

Iran hanged two men a week ago in the oil city of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province, after they were convicted of a bombing that killed six people in October.

''Our enemies seek to inflict blows on the system and these insecurities are the result of the attempts by the enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran,'' Mohseni-Ejei said.

Slightly more than half of Iran's are 69 million people are Persians and the rest are ethnic Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Baluchis and Lors. About three percent are Arabs and authorities are sensitive about protests and discontent in the southwestern Arab territories where most of the oil industry is based.

REUTERS KD VC2129