Putin plays with f ire in his new doctrine
Of late Vladimir Putin has shifted Russia’s nuclear doctrine to a more directly and openly retaliatory posture in response to any attack by Ukraine or any NATO country using longer-range US missiles.
At least 19 people were dead and several others injured after a powerful explosion hit a clinic in northern Tehran on Tuesday, according to the media report.
The blast at Sina At’har health centre caused damage to buildings in the vicinity and sent a plume of thick black smoke into the night sky, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
The Tehran’s emergency medical services said in a statement, “An explosion was reported at 20:56 (1626 GMT) followed by a fire at Sina At’har clinic. Medical units were dispatched immediately”.
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“The death of 13 people has been confirmed. Six have also been injured and transferred” to a hospital, it added.
Fifteen of the dead were women, state television said.
The explosion occurred as gas canisters caught fire in the clinic’s basement, Press TV said in a report.
Tehran fire department spokesman Jalal Maleki said, “They unfortunately lost their lives due to the heat and thick smoke”.
The incident comes four days after an explosion near a military complex rocked the Iranian capital.
Parchin is a site suspected of having hosted conventional explosion tests applicable to nuclear power, which the Islamic republic denies.
Iran had refused the IAEA access to the site because of the nature of its work, but the agency’s then chief, the late Yukiya Amano, paid a visit there.
In 2017, at least 35 miners were killed in a coal mine blast in Iran.
(With inputs from agency)
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