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".
"It shows the level of disunity at the very top of the Iranian [political] hierachy [with] Ahmadinejad having already polarised the internal political scene as a result of fraudulent election results that were announced more than 20 months ago," Khonsari said.
There are now reports that some Ahmadinejad supporters have been arrested for sorcery:
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).
Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".
The hell, there aren't even any super natural powers in the Koran. Obviously Khamenei is an idolitor to believe such rumors. Quick whip him before he turns into a pig...damn too slow.
I don't mind seeing a schism between these two but my fervent hope is that somehow the intellectual elite in that country rises again. Unlikely I know.
... Now I can hire these now-unemployed and likely exiled 'men of special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds' to entertain at my son's birthday!
Well, Amadinejad musta always know the real power in the country lies with the will of the Ayatollahs. With all the international and internal stir he was causing, it's only a matter of time before he pissed off Khamenei.
Hopefully things turn out of the better in that messed up country. I hope both of them destroy each other in the ensuing power struggle
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'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'
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'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'