Mehdi Karrubi, Iran’s former parliamentary speaker and a veteran of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has criticised Shia Muslim radicals who last week destroyed a religious building belonging to Islamic mystics in the holy city of Qom.

His comments – prominent in reformist newspapers – reflect concern about Shia militants stirring conflict as Iran’s fundamentalist president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, tries to radicalise Islam at home and abroad, and as Sunni militants provoke sectarian violence in neighbouring Iraq with attacks like Wednesday’s on the Askariyeh holy Shia shrine in Samarra.