BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A bomb exploded in downtown Tehran today at the height of the morning rush-hour, killing at least 18 people and injuring 300, Iran's official Tehran radio said.
The official news agency IRNA, monitored in Beirut, said two children were among the 18 people killed in the blast in Railway Square in the Iranian capital.
IRNA said eight of the 300 wounded were in critical condition in hospitals but 50 others were released after being treated.
Tehran radio said the 55-pound bomb blew up while 'people were rushing to work' in 'one of the busiest places in Tehran during the morning.'
The explosion dug a 6-foot crater in the ground in one of the most populated areas of downtown Tehran, the agency said.
'Some 20 shops received 30 percent to 80 percent damage while 11 vehicles were destroyed,' IRNA said. 'Windows 100 meters from the scene of the incident have been shattered.'
In Paris, the Iranian dissident movement, the People's Mujahedeen Khalq, condemned the bombing and said it was the work either of 'agents' of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's regime or former members of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlevi's secret police.
'The People's Mujahedeen organization of Iran ... strongly and vehemently condemns such crimes no matter where and by whom they were perpetrated,' said a statement from the Paris-based group.
'The perpetrators of such acts are either the regime's agents -- in a bid to cover up their inhuman crimes and their numerous deadlocks especially in the Iran-Iraq war -- or the remnants of the shah's hated secret police SAVAK,' the statement said.
The Mujahedeen has never claimed responsibility for previous bombings in Iran and blames Iran's fundamentalist Islamic regime for 'similar crimes,' a rebel spokesman said.
Tehran Police Chief Col. Abbas Moazzami told IRNA the bomb exploded beside a fruit juice stand on the northwestern side of the square in south-central Tehran. Police were examining remains of the bomb, he said.
The last wave of bombings in Tehran, which analysts blamed on the Mujahedeen, died out in the spring of 1982 after Iranian Revolutionary Guards shattered most of the organization's guerrilla bases in Iran.
During the Mujahedeen's three-month campaign against the Revolutionary Guards two bombs exploded in November1981 in Tehran's main railroad station.
The biggest blast in the Iranian capital since Khomeini took power in 1979 was in June 1981, when the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party was destroyed. The blast killed 72 people, among them four Cabinet ministers.
