[4] Iran's Interior Ministry claimed that the bombings were meant to strike fear into Iranians in order to stop them from voting, according to the New York Times.
[5] "These terrorists have been trained under the umbrella of the Americans in Iraq," The Iranian top national security official Ali Agha Mohammadi said.
The blasts occurred shortly before dusk as shoppers crowded to buy food for the evening meal that breaks the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
One bomb had exploded in the Kianpars area, inside the Saman Bank, and had killed at least 9 people and wounded 45 others; the second explosion took place on Golestan Road next to the Natural Resources Department, a state environmental agency, causing injuries but no deaths.
Mr Ahmadinejad's media chief said he did not believe the bombs were linked to the planned visit, because there had been a series of similar blasts last year.
The government initially blamed the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MeK) and the separatist Ahwazi Arab Peoples Democratic Popular Front (ADPF).
Sabah al-Musawi of AARP - which was created in Damascus by the Syrian Ba'ath Party - also appeared to justify the killing of civilians, stating: "These people came from outside Ahvaz.
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS) spokesman Nasser Bani-Assad dismissed the claims of responsibility by various foreign-based separatist groups, alleging that they did not have the ability to carry out an attack and were seeking publicity and notoriety.
In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Moeen suggested that the violence could have been aimed at encouraging people to vote for a hardline militarist candidate.
Iran accused British army forces across the border in southern Iraq of co-operating with bombers who carried out January's attacks in Ahvaz.
In the months after the June 2005 attacks, government officials and the pro-government media alleged that the UK, US, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the Shell Oil Company all had a role in the bombings, but none published any conclusive evidence.
According to Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker: "[T]eams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups."