Breaking: Ahmadinejad Could Resign as President of Iran; Top Aides Arrested and Charged With Sorcery

one...two...tree · May 6, 2011

Al Jazeera is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is considering stepping down:

A political dispute between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader is reported to have intensified.

Ahmadinejad is said to be contemplating resigning after Heidar Moslehi, the intelligence minister he had sacked, was reinstated by Khamenei.

The president is understood to have shirked some of his duties and skipped cabinet meetings for the past ten days in anger over the decision.

Mehrdad Khonsari, an analyst with the Centre for Arab and Iranian Studies in London, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the dispute, which began last month, had become "serious".

Khonsari told Al Jazeera that Iran could see an uprising like the ones seen elsewhere in the Middle East in recent months. "You have to bear in mind that what we're witnessing in the Middle East it all started with events in Iran some 20 months ago and Iran is not immune from the global cts from what we're witnessing as a result of this Arab awakening," he said.

The Guardian, meanwhile, has more on the dispute, include the arrest of Ahmadinejad's aides for being involved in "magic":

Close allies of

Iran

's president,

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader,

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

.

Several people said to be close to the president and his

chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei

, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits).

Hat tip Raw Story.