Shoe thrown at Iranian president

URUMIYE, Iran, March 6 (UPI) -- Iranian bloggers report that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the target of a hurled shoe this week as he traveled through the city of Urumiye.

While newspapers and broadcasters ignored the story, the word in the photosphere was that the president's security guards failed to find the shoe-thrower, The Guardian reports. Ahmadinejad was reported to be traveling in an open car to deliver a speech in the northwestern city.

Among Muslims, shoe-throwing is considered a deadly insult, and the Iraqi journalist who threw both his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush, who ducked, became a hero in much of the Middle East, including Iran. The practice was also taken up by demonstrators in Iceland and other countries.

Urumiye News, an Iranian Web site, said that members of the crowd became angry after a car in the president's motorcade hit an elderly man. The man had been trying to give Ahmadinejad a letter.

In 2006, someone threw a shoe at Ahmadinejad during a protest at Amir Kabir University in Tehran.