Ayatollah threatens Iran crackdown

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said opposition leaders "will be held accountable for all the violence, bloodshed and rioting" if they do not halt the rallies.

Reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters were left with a stark choice: Drop demands for a new election or take to the streets again and face the consequences.

Further protest rallies would be in blatant defiance of the man endowed with virtually limitless powers under Iran's constitution.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other European Union leaders expressed dismay over the threat of a crackdown, while Iranian ambassador Rasoul Movahedian was summoned to the Foreign Office to explain the Ayatollah's denounciation of Britain as the "most treacherous" of Iran's enemies.

Ayatollah Khamenei also said the balloting had not been rigged and he sided with hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, offering no concessions to the opposition. He effectively ruled out any chance for a new vote, lauding the June 12 election as an expression of the people's will.

"Some of our enemies in different parts of the world intended to depict this absolute victory, this definitive victory, as a doubtful victory," Ayatollah Khamenei said at Friday prayers at Tehran University. "It is your victory. They cannot manipulate it."

Pro-Mousavi websites had no immediate reaction to Ayatollah Khamenei's warning but left unchanged plans for a march at 4pm on Saturday from Revolution Square to Freedom Square, site of a massive rally on Monday which ended with fatal clashes between protesters and a pro-government militia.

Monday's demonstration was followed by three consecutive days of protest that have posed the greatest challenge to Iran's Islamic ruling system since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power. So far, the government has not stopped the protests with force despite an official ban on them. But Khamenei opened the door for harsher measures.

"We are all feel a little angry, worried and disappointed after the speech," said one Mousavi supporter. "We are waiting for Mousavi's reaction. He is our hope to protect our votes."