Merges IRAN MINISTRY and IRAN ATTACK The Intelligence Ministry in Iran says it has arrested some of its own agents who it says are responsible for a recent spate of killings of liberal intellectuals and politicians.

An official statement said the agents had acted without authorisation; it said the murders amounted to treason and had tarnished the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Two prominent writers and the leader of a secular nationalist movement and his wife were all stabbed or strangled between October and December -- another intellectual was found dead in suspicious circumstances.

The BBC Middle East correspondent says the announcement of the arrests is a political bombshell and amounts to a huge blow to the hardline faction in the current power struggle.

In a later twist, a prominent conservative, the top justice official Ali Razini, has escaped an apparent assassination attempt when gunmen opened fire on his car.