Aide: plot to kill Ahmadinejad thwarted at U.N. meet

An adviser of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said there was a plot to assassinate the Iranian president during a U.N. food crisis summit in Italy earlier this month, an Iranian daily reported on Tuesday.

It came a few days after Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, accused the United States and its allies of plotting to kidnap and kill him during a visit to neighboring Iraq in March.

Presidential adviser Ali Zabihi said Ahmadinejad's policies since his election in 2005 were threatening "the illegitimate interests" of many foreign powers and domestic circles, the Etemad-e Melli daily reported.

"Therefore they are thinking about his dismissal or assassination," Zabihi said in the northwestern city of Tabriz.

A plan to kidnap Ahmadinejad in Baghdad in March and a plot to assassinate him at this month's three-day summit in Rome were part of this, he said, without giving details, adding: "Both of those were aborted with God's help."

Ahmadinejad, widely expected to stand for re-election next year, visited Rome on June 3.

Reformist critics of the president have asked why the Iranian government has not lodged an official complaint about the alleged plot.

"Another assassination claim," the reformist Mardomsalari said in a front-page headline on Tuesday.

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