IRAN’S communist party blamed “agent provocateurs” of the state yesterday for killings attributed to anti-government protesters

Navid Shomali, the Tudeh Party representative in Britain, said nine deaths overnight were part of attempts to justify a “massive crackdown on the protest movement.”

Iranian media reported that six people were killed overnight when rioters attacked a police station in the town of Qahdarijan in central Isfahan province in a bid to seize guns.