Iran says partial recount shows election valid

Possible sanctions against Iran?
The statement did not mollify Britain, whose Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that Iran's actions were "unacceptable, unjustified and without foundation."

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Group of Eight leaders meeting next week in Italy will discuss possible sanctions against Iran.

Ejehi boasted that Iran had overcome attempts at an uprising like the Velvet Revolution, the peaceful 1989 mass demonstrations that brought down then-Czechoslovakia's Communist regime.

"I can surely say that such a thing will not happen in our country. But if the question is whether the enemy was after this or not, the answer is that it certainly was," he said in remarks shown on state television.

Protesters implicated in death
The regime has implicated protesters and even foreign intelligence agents in Soltan's death. But an Iranian doctor who said he tried to save her told the BBC last week she apparently was shot by a member of the volunteer Basij militia. Protesters spotted an armed member of the militia on a motorcycle, and stopped and disarmed him, Dr. Arash Hejazi said.

Basij commander Hossein Taeb on Monday alleged that armed impostors were posing as militia members, Iran's state-run English-language satellite channel Press TV reported.

Authorities have cracked down hard on dissent, most recently on Sunday, when riot police clashed with up to 3,000 protesters near the Ghoba Mosque in north Tehran. It was Iran's first major post-election unrest in four days.

Witnesses told The Associated Press that police used tear gas and clubs to break up the crowd, and said some demonstrators suffered broken bones. They alleged that security forces beat an elderly woman, prompting a screaming match with young demonstrators who then fought back. North Tehran is a base of support for opposition Mousavi.

The reports could not be independently verified because of tight restrictions imposed on journalists in Iran.

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