Iranian power struggle intensifies

The ongoing power struggle in Teheran, between supreme leader ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has intensified with a cleric leading Friday prayers indirectly criticising the president.

''We must not be fooled by the nice words and false vows of hypocrites,'' ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, who leads Friday prayers in Teheran declared. ''People must not be fooled by false claims of following the leader. They must accept his orders,'' the ayatollah was quoted in Iranian website Entekhab.

Amidst chants of 'death to opponents of the supreme leader,' Yazdi also warned that even at the start of the Islamic revolution, governments that acted against the system were swept away. Yazdi, formerly close to the president, is now increasingly being seen as hostile to him.

Differences between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei surfaced last month when the president tried to sack Heydar Moslehi, his intelligence minister. But Khamenei publicly ordered that Moslehi continue as the intelligence minister, sending a strong message across to the president as to who was the country's supreme leader.

A furious Ahmadinejad then boycotted his office for more than a week. Last Wednesday, he avoided interacting with his intelligence minister at a cabinet meet. Similarly, he did not attend an important religious function, which saw all powerful leaders and clerics in attendance.

Worse, many of Ahmadinejad's advisers have been arrested in recent days, dissident Iranian websites claim. They include Abbas Amirifar, a cleric who leads prayers at the presidential mosque.